To accept a pay cut when you have personally worked hard for your remuneration, achieving all that was asked of you in good faith is something few of us would do willingly. The idea of going home and explaining to your nearest and dearest that you have chosen to accept a cut of over 50% would take some guts and some integrity. However if the Company has just made a huge loss, even if the loss was not in your part of the business and if the loss had led to 1000’s of job cuts and the closure of 100’s of business outlets then surely your conscience would make the decision a bit easier to justify to yourself. However it would still be a tough call to make and one that make you wonder if this was the sort of business you wanted to commit your life to. However if you did find a new job, surely the shareholders and indeed the Government would understand. In refusing part of your promised pay, to show solidarity with the other people in the business, that if you subsequently left the business, it was nothing to do with your own lack of commitment, it was simply that next year you don’t want to be put in the same position. The decision might be a bit easier if the pay you refused was a Million pound bonus.

In the light of the news this morning that Barclays is to close branches, potentially leaving some locations without a place to do their banking, and that hard working faithful workers are about to lose their jobs, which will lead to many families suffering hardship. Surely now is the time for the people on the Investment Banking side of the business to understand why taking large bonuses when the group as a whole has made a loss, when jobs have been lost and branches have been closed is inconsistent with any conventional sense of human solidarity.

If some of the Investment Bankers did agree to waive their bonuses perhaps it is also time for some of us to begin to revise our attitude towards bankers. The sense that everyone hates you because of what you do for a living probably helps to increase the sense of isolation from the rest of the workforce and from society as a whole. It is this isolation that will make bold decisions more difficult right now. Perhaps its time for greater solidarity to be expressed by all of us, even to bankers! Whilst some people believe we can topple capitalism that will almost have unforeseen implications for many of us, and may never happen. Learning to like people a bit more should not be a threat to any of us.