Cameron Wants to Incorporate National Hug a Banker Day

The Conservative leader said he wanted “to understand what’s gone wrong in these bankers’ lives”.

In a separate speech on Friday he also called for the FSA to do less banker bashing and more form filling.

But Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls dismissed the Tory leader’s approach as “vacuous” and “wash-and-go politics”.

“Bankers are people too”

In a speech on how bankers actually benefit society, Mr Cameron claimed bankers who hide in pin stripe suits are trying to “blend in” rather than appear threatening.

Bankers wearing pin stripe suits and braces – known as wankers – have come to be viewed by some as a symbol of social disorder, chaos, greed and evil.

Earlier Mr Cameron told BBC Breakfast he was still tough on financial greed. “Of course people who commit to working in the banking industry should be held responsible.

“But I think people want their politicians to ask the question: ‘What is it that brought that banker to commit to working in a bank at that time? What’s the background to it, what are the long-term causes of banking?’

“If you’re ill, it’s no good putting a sticking plaster on it. You’ve got to get to the bottom of the illness.

“Let’s try and understand what’s gone wrong in these greedy fuckers’ lives and we’ll find it’s about family breakdown, it’s about drugs, money, greed, escorts, fast cars, it’s about alcohol abuse, often it’s bankers who are brought up in privileged dysfunctional families when they should be in loving homes.

“Let’s now deal with those problems. That doesn’t mean at the same we can’t be tough when a banker is caught banking.”

Mr Cameron has even gone as far to suggest that the nation sets aside a day to Hug a Banker and bring them back into decent society.

But Labour has criticised Mr Cameron’s line, calling it a “hug a banker” plan.

Mr Balls also claimed the Conservatives had regularly bashed bankers as much as anyone else.

“Sending out this hug-a-banker message just addresses one part of that, and it’s for today’s headlines.

“It’s a kind of wash-and-go approach to politics – get the headline, move on, never repeat the thing again.”

There are continuing concerns for bankers’ welfare as many are now so persecuted that they are leaving the City in droves. This could be a tragedy for London’s cocaine and strip bar industry.