Before being elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron referring to the crisis tackling the crisis famously said “we are all in it together”. Bart Becht of global consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser took home £92.6m while workers there only saw an increase of 2% in their pay this year.

At a time when European governments, including the British, are approving harsh austerity packages, directors of FTSE 100 (100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange) saw their total earnings soar by an average of 55%.

The proposals made by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) appear to go beyond the G20 rules, introducing stricter thresholds on bonuses. The main concern of the French banks, in this regard, who dislike these proposals intently, is the risk of distorting competition between banks in Europe, Asia and the United States, thereby increasing the likelihood of outsourcing.

António Horta-Osório, the head of Santander UK, is to become the new chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group on an £8m a year pay package . He will receive a basic pay of £1.035m, and an annual bonus of up to £2.33m. He will also be eligible for a payment of up to 420% of his salary, linked to targets that could see him collect about another £5m, bringing the total up to £8.3m (9.8m euro). This is happening in Lloyds, a bank that in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the £37bn British government injection of public money in the banking system. This comes when thousands of people are losing their jobs at Lloyds.