Excessive banking salaries will only be curbed by more competition | Simon Jenkins

The government can’t restrict bank staff’s pay, as Steve Hilton suggests. But it can enforce true competition and refuse to do business with banks that think they are too big to fail

There is no feasible way the banking industry will – or probably should – be legally curbed in how much it pays its staff. During the financial crash, politicians and the press universally condemned million-pound salaries and multimillion bonuses. The banks took not a shred of notice, even when pocketing billions...