London Mayor Johnson Asks Barclays to Double Bike Hire Backing
London Mayor Boris Johnson asked Barclays Bank Plc to double its sponsorship of the U.K. capital’s bike hire program to 50 million pounds ($81 million) in recognition of the support British tax payers give to the financial sector.
The bank, which put 25 million pounds into the 140 million- pound project, should show it wants to put something back into the community, Johnson said. Cyclists rent bikes from stations around London and drop them off at the end of their journey.
“It’s good that Barclays coughed up 25 million for the bike hire scheme and I think they could cough up another 25 million,” Johnson said in a BBC TV interview. “And they should because these people have received substantial sums of money from the tax payer to keep the whole banking industry afloat.”
While recognizing that the financial sector generates “hundreds of thousands of jobs” and 31 billion pounds in tax, Johnson said he wants to see more of the money being paid in bonuses shared with other Londoners, both through donations from highly paid employees and corporate sponsorship.
“I would like to see a greater share of their earnings going to the city that surrounds them, we’re starting to see some progress and people giving more,” Johnson said. “It’s a long day’s march saying that and then saying the best thing for London would be to machine gun the bankers or deport them. That, I’m afraid, is not a credible economic policy for this city.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
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