DAVID CAMERON’S slippery performance in Parliament over bonuses for RBS top dogs exposes the Tories and Liberal Democrats as hand in glove with the banking elite.

His statement of intent to continue the existing £2,000 cap on cash awards is meaningless since bonuses paid in RBS shares are simply deferred cash rewards.

Equally meaningless is his commitment to veto any proposed increase in the overall pay and bonus bill at RBS since the workforce has shrunk by 40,000, including 2,000 investment bankers, since the finance sector’s self-inflicted crisis began in 2008.

The real shame of this reduction in posts is that the price of excess and recklessness has been paid by staff with no responsibility for creating the private-sector banking collapse.

While a tiny elite of high-earners continue to accept as their entitlement salaries, fringe benefits, bonuses and lifestyles that would embarrass a Saudi prince, the overwhelming majority of bank staff live in another world.

They, in common with the rest of the working class — note to Ed Miliband, not middle class — endure reduced real pay levels amid constantly rising costs for housing, gas, electricity, food and travel.

And yet, while the spotlight is on how much treasure should be set aside for the gilded elite, RBS is expected to announce further cuts among its staff in call centres, bank branches and processing units.

Cameron tried to pass off his government’s misleading veto talk as tough treatment of the Masters of the Universe, trying to score a political point by lamenting hypocritically that the previous Labour government hadn’t done something similar.

New Labour’s fawning attitude to the finance industry was indeed a disgrace, as Gordon Brown flattered bankers as “wealth creators” rather than as ruthless seekers of profit based on activities that did not benefit the wider economy.

However, the Prime Minister should not seek to make political capital out of voters’ short-term memories.

Neither Tories nor Liberal Democrats took issue with new Labour’s subservience to the City. They supported it and, if anything, favoured even less stringent regulation of its activities.

These parties remain committed to the basic principle of allowing the rich and powerful to do as they wish and to keep as much of their ill-gotten gains as possible.

Cameron confirmed this by opposing Miliband’s modest suggestion that property developers should lose land if they refuse to build in expectation of higher prices later.

The inescapable conclusion is that the private profits system does not deliver except for a rich minority. A new direction is necessary.