While investors tread water, bonuses hit record highs—and the game goes on.
By Steve Conley11 March 2025 | 4 min read
So much for trickle-down economics. Turns out, when the government promised growth, what they really meant was bonuses—for the same financial elite who wrote the playbook.
St James’s Place (SJP), poster child for how to turn scandals into shareholder value, has done it again. Their CEO Mark FitzPatrick took home a cool £3.4 million last year, nearly half of it in bonuses. All while the firm remains under scrutiny for an advice review, high-fee underperforming funds, and what some might kindly call a pyramid of adviser debt.
But don’t worry, it’s all perfectly legal. Encouraged, even.
When “Growth” Means “Grab More Assets”
The financial services industry advised the government that the key to raising living standards was to grow the economy. Fair enough—until you read the fine print.
“Grow the economy,” it turns out, meant “channel more money to us.” Assets under management, not household income. GDP, not groceries. That £3.3 trillion in UK investable assets? The industry wants a bigger slice. So, like obedient schoolchildren, the Starmer-Reeves government has set to work dismantling the very regulations meant to protect consumers from being fleeced.
First on the chopping block? Oversight. Because why let a little thing like consumer protection get in the way of a tidy bonus?
Fee-for-No-Service: Now With Added Spin
SJP’s ongoing scandal over charging clients for advice they never received was smoothed over with a statistic so vague it deserves a BAFTA: apparently, “all but 2%” of clients were offered a review.
Offered. Not necessarily received. And certainly not quality advice. But let’s not get bogged down in details—especially not when there’s a share price to inflate and an executive package to defend.
How to Fix a Broken System? Force People to Use It
Now, with regulation in retreat and accountability in freefall, the next target is cash ISAs. Cautious savers, beware: the government’s plan to “nudge” you out of low-risk cash savings into the embrace of investment ISAs just so happens to benefit firms like SJP. Funny how that works.
What’s grown from this so-called growth strategy? Not the economy. Not household savings. Not even investor returns, which remain tepid at best.
What has grown? Executive pay. Bonuses. And the confidence of the financial elite that no matter what, they’ll walk away richer.
Who’s Running the Show?
Let’s call it what it is: the government has outsourced economic strategy to the very people who stand to profit from it. And while the public is sold stories about empowerment and bold ambitions, the truth is grubbier: this is profit before principles, wrapped in a pinstripe suit and rubber-stamped by policy.
The only thing being empowered is the City’s balance sheet.
A Dangerous Illusion
Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer may think deregulation makes them look modern and business-friendly. In reality, it makes them look like they’ve fallen for the same old City con. Deregulation didn’t work in 2008. It’s not working now.
And when the next crisis hits, you can be sure of two things:
The public will foot the bill.
The fat cats will still get their bonuses.
What do you think? Is this really a growth agenda—or just a bigger trough for those already feeding? Let’s open the debate.
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