Editor-At-Large: Repellent fat cats, bloated by your bonuses, resign

The worst week ever? Friday was grisly – financial markets in free fall, television screens covered with red figures. Robert Peston on the news, eyes staring wildly, mouth contorted in a rictus grin, delivering impenetrable information about the crisis, with his speech crashing through five gears like a 1930s roadster.

I emailed my bank for reassurance about my savings. I have absolutely no idea whether high street banks are safer than just stuffing the cash under my mattress. A chap didn't really say anything substantial, and when I asked if the bank had more debts than deposits, I didn't get a clear answer. The evening ended with the local news bringing home the reality of those red figures – 1,100 people lost their jobs in Leeds and Sheffield alone last week, with many factories and small businesses facing closure.

The day before, an official from Kent County Council explained why he had invested £50m of council taxpayers' money in Iceland – no one told him how risky it was. Astonishing! I naively thought council tax was banked to be used to run the police, empty bins, sweep the streets and provide housing and help for the elderly.

The local government bloke hasn't said sorry. In fact, no one in this whole mess has said sorry. Gordon Brown certainly hasn't said sorry for spending the past 10 years presiding over a banking culture where rules were flouted and excessive bonuses the norm.

It's ironic that a Labour government condoned a period of financial wizardry which has collapsed like a house of cards, leaving ordinary people losing their pensions and their savings, stuck in houses they can't sell, with mortgages they can't afford. He might be taking radical action now, but it was Gordon Brown who encouraged us to borrow beyond our means while he boasted about being prudent.

But the real enemies in all of this are the City fat cats – over-rewarded, arrogant and driven by self-interest. For years now we have lived in a bonus culture. No one high up the food chain these days just does a job for a wage. They get bonuses, which allegedly act as incentives. Trouble is, whether they are council officials or bankers, bonuses for performance now mean taking unacceptable risks – not using their own cash, but our council tax, our savings and our pensions.

The salaries of the people running banks and public institutions in this country, whether it's the BBC, high street banks or an NHS trust, are far too high and have soared at a rate not matched at the lower levels, where people are being asked to take less-than-inflation pay increases. The fantasy is that these bosses have "special" skills. This is the rot at the centre of the market-led economy. We truly do have two classes in Britain now – the ordinary workers, and the repellent superior beings on bonuses and inflated salaries who walk away from financial catastrophes with pensions and pay-offs. As far as I can see, the sooner bonuses are stopped, the better. That's radical politics. Give people share options, exercised after they've grown the business.

Meanwhile, we need culprits. Sir Fred Goodwin boss of the RBS (whose shares dropped 39 per cent one day last week) and Andy Hornby of HBOS (where loans exceed deposits by 177 per cent) should resign and return their bonuses. You have to lead by example.

Pinteresque What's it about? And why do we bother?

I feel sorry for David Walliams: 'Little Britain USA' received a mixed reception on the other side of the Atlantic. I'd rather spend 30 minutes in the company of Lou and Andy and the glorious Vicky Pollard than anything else on telly on Fridays, particularly that bloke-fest bore 'QI'. Marjorie Dawes is back, dealing with a bunch of chubby Yanks in super-sneery form. But David's real problem is being condemned to spend his nights on the London stage trying to persuade us that Harold Pinter has something relevant to say. 'No Man's Land' is a monumental waste of talent. Michael Gambon is Hirst, a dying alcoholic who only has to move his huge podgy fingers an inch and you're transfixed. This encounter between the wealthy Hirst and a tramp he's picked up who fancies himself as a poet is more than 30 years old and hasn't worn well. The arrival of Walliams as the sexually ambiguous and menacing Foster lifts the proceedings, but you leave the theatre repeating just two words: "what?" and "why?". What on earth was it about and why do talented actors feel compelled to wrestle with Pinter? Keith Allen in 'The Homecoming', Eileen Atkins in 'The Birthday Party' – I must have sat through half a dozen over a decade. Dingy living rooms. Landladies putting on the kettle at a snail's pace. Interminable silences. Cryptic comments. And yet nearly every critic treats this stuff like the work of a demi-god. Is Pinter sacrosanct? Be honest – he's a bore.

I refuse to go gentle into old age

Baby boomers – the generation born soon after the Second World War – have claimed they are going to grow old disgracefully. The new breed of flamboyant pensioners – me, Mick Jagger, Paul Smith and Elton John – prove that that 60 is the new 40. No slippers by the fire for us: we still work with no plans to retire. However, a study claims that most of us secretly plan to spend our old age watching television, listening to CDs and going for walks. And 43 per cent still have at least one child living at home, which must make it hard to get drunk and come home with unsuitable one-night stands. This report sounds a load of tosh. I've no plans to leave the house in sweatpants or start clipping coupons out of newspapers. And I'll be dying my hair bright red till my last breath.

It's the betrayal that's disgusting

Repulsive Max Mosley is back in the news again, announcing he's going to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge our privacy laws, claiming that his wife was devastated by the tabloid exposure of his sexual preferences – ie, being whipped at orgies by five prostitutes at a time. Mr Mosley had lied to his wife for 48 years about his appetite for S & M, but he doesn't think that's our business. He wants newspapers to be ordered to tell someone before they publish private information about them, whimpering that his treatment was "disgusting". Most of Radio 4's 'PM' show listeners did not agree: the one person they seemed to find disgusting was Max, who had treated his wife so shabbily.

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