AS taxpayers we are major shareholder in several banks since our Government bailed them out of financial ruin with our cash.

This figure could rise to £850billion. We are told the Treasury had little choice but to use taxpayers’ money to safeguard savings and stabilise and restore confidence in the financial system but the reality is that some of these billions will be paid to investment bankers as annual bonuses in February.

Since we are now the majority shareholders of these banks, why do we seem totally powerless to curb their excessive bonus culture?

RBS is preparing to pay £1.5bn worth of bonuses to their investment bankers this month. Around the same time, through the various media channels, we see and hear Government advertisements reminding the self employed and small and medium enterprises to pay their taxes online by January 31. I could not help but be struck by the timing of these two events. Could they be in some way linked?

The estimated £1.5bn that RBS will pay to its investment bankers this month in the form of bonuses will ultimately be drawn from the taxes that self employed people and SMEs are due to pay. Are these taxes really going straight into the pockets of over-paid bankers?

Meanwhile, we are being softened up by the main political parties for painful cuts in public spending after the election and last week the government warned us to prepare for the toughest public spending cuts for 20 years.

The investment bankers at RBS are the highest paid public servants in the country.

Before handing out the punishment to those already struggling to make ends meet in this difficult economic climate, I suggest that public spending cuts are borne by the high-risk speculators of RBS.

They ought to be held accountable for the dire financial crisis into which their irresponsible actions have plunged us.

Together with every other UK taxpayer, we own 84 per cent of the company. This gives us the power to veto any bonus above £25,000. I would like both MPs Helen Southworth and Helen Jones to inform Alistair Darling that I am no longer prepared to fund the excessive bonuses of RBS investment bankers.

TONY FOX Stockton Heath