Letter: John Lewis and the banks are poles apart

"There must be inequalities of ability, energy and scope, and there must be corresponding inequality in the sharing of gain and of knowledge and of power. But this inequality should be the least possible. It need not be nearly so great as in the modern business-world it is."

Does this sound familiar? These are the words of John Spedan Lewis, founder of the John Lewis Partnership, spoken in 1957.

John Lewis has announced that all of its employees - partners - will share in its profits for the year, resulting in an 18 per cent of salary bonus for each of the 76,500 partners (your report, 10 March).

It makes contrasting reading to the news that the head of Barclays, Bob Diamond, pocketed a 6.5 million bonus, while RBS head Stephen Hester has been awarded 4.5m worth of shares on top of his 1.2m salary.

The inequality between the highest earners and the poorest paid in our society is not only morally repugnant, it is counter-productive in every sense of the word.

The John Lewis partners rightly feel that they are working for themselves, and their motive to make the company profitable could not be clearer. John Lewis customers are obviously satisfied with their products and services.

Meanwhile, our major banks are near the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys and the public is rightly irked at their arrogant attitude to calls for bonus restraint in the boardroom.

John Spedan Lewis had this to say about partnership: "It makes work something to live for as well as something to live by. Here may be the new source of working energy of which our country is in such grave need."

Prophetic words indeed.

Stuart R Holden

Fowler's Court

Prestonpans

Stephen Hester justifies "restraint" in bonuses by saying that a 1p increase in the share price will benefit the taxpayers' 83 per cent holding by 900 million (your report, 9 March).

But he admitted two years ago that the share price would depend much more on a general economic recovery than on the board's actions (so banks could cause the recession but their success would be an effect of the recovery).

The banking sector's profitable operations are to a large extent due to continuing taxpayer support, well beyond the original bail-outs, in the form of so-called quantitative easing which our children and grandchildren will be financing for decades to come.

Why have the bank bonuses come to light in phases? Mr Hester's 2m "annual bonus", announced last week, is followed by a further 4.5m of shares this week. Will a further "enhanced package" be announced next week?

I have no truck with politicians who flaunt their moral compasses while abusing their positions, but they usually pay for it in the end. Conversely, senior bankers remain the masters of our universe with impunity.

They are not entrepreneurs risking their own money; they are functionaries.Mr Hester's 2010 earnings of 7.7m would pay for a senior NHS consultant back to 1939.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King has at last begun to query why the global banking sector, unique among industries equally dependent on recruiting and retaining the best worldwide talent, needs to pay such massive sums.

Maybe Kevin Dunion, our information commissioner who has succeeded in opening many closed doors, could require the RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton to answer that (without using the words "independent remuneration committee", "leapfrogging" or "you scratch mine"), since he recently agreed that many recipients did not justify their pay levels.

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews