When is a bonus not a bonus?

I hear that it’s pretty much a done deal that Stephen Hester, boss of RBS, will take 100 per cent of his bonus in stock (though under FSA rules he gets 80 per cent that way anyway).

The fact he’s not taking cash might be lost on some as nuance when they see the total numbers involved.

The government’s hoping that it’ll prove it is getting some restraint from banks in the face of a spending round that cut like crazy in the wake of the banking crisis.

It’s called for banks to link payment to long-term performance not short term gains and payment in stock, it’ll argue, proves it’s getting its way.

Problem is, as all parties know well, months and months of bank-bashing rhetoric has raised expectations way beyond this.

Ed Miliband did his best to exploit voter anger on this by calling for the one-off banker bonus tax to be repeated for one more year. The government’s response is to say it wants a smaller bank bonus pool this year (that was going to happen anyway because bank profits were down and pools will be down on average something like 20-30 per cent) and to emphasise the concessions it says it is in the process of getting out of the banks in talks – more lending and more disclosure/transparency on bonuses (expect more on this before too long from the government).

But as the government knows, these concessions are not as eye-catching or blood-boiling as the sight of a long line of 0s attached to a pound sign and a mug-shot of the boss of a bank the public bailed out.

So we’re in for a few more weeks of political turbulence and anger on bonuses.