SLIMY David Cameron slithered around questions yesterday about whether greedy bankers at state-owned RBS will gorge on huge bonuses.

The Prime Minister said the existing £2,000 cap on RBS bonuses would continue to apply this year and next.

However, sneakily, he did not promise to limit payouts in shares.

Mr Cameron also promised to veto proposals to increase the overall pay bill — a ruse because RBS has fired 2,000 bankers in the last year according to Labour.

Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Chris Leslie criticised the Prime Minister’s “smoke and mirrors” proposals.

He told the House: “The Prime Minister gave the impression that he was going to veto higher pay and bonuses. Maybe he was unintentionally misleading in the way that he was making that particular point.”

Mr Leslie then accused the PM of underhand tactics.

He said: “Some of us may well think that he was conveniently looking at this question of total banker pay at RBS, total remuneration, as a sort of device to slip out of this question about how he’s going to exercise that shareholder vote.

“The House needs to know that RBS has been reducing the number of bankers on their roll by about 2,000 bankers less in the last year. You’d expect their total pay bill to actually start to fall, so it should.

“But it still doesn’t get out of the question about those individual senior bankers, those earning £400,000 or more, whether the shareholder, in this case the Chancellor, is going to give them permission not just to have bonuses of 100 per cent of their salary but to bust through that and go to 200 per cent of their salary.

“That is a crucial test for the Chancellor and whatever sophistry and warm words we might get from the Prime Minister they cannot wriggle out of that particular decision.”

Unite said that any attempt by the government to allow RBS top brass more bonuses off the back of taxpayers was “disgusting.”

Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said: “Thousands of RBS staff are struggling to feed their children.

“They, along with taxpayers, have every right to expect this government to block any attempt to further reward these senior bankers.”

ryanfletcher@peoples-press.com