Tis the season of banking folly

Audiences everywhere will shout: "Oh no he isn't," "he's behind you" and boo on cue.

Afterwards, they will leave the theatre and step back into the land of the real villains - the rich and big business who are robbing us blind at every turn.

Barely a day goes by without some fresh revelation or two about how the barons of commerce and industry are ripping off the people of Britain.

This week alone, we have learned that pension fund managers in the City are dipping into the savings of millions of workers on a scale that Fagin could only dream about.

According to a leaked report from Treasury consultants, many workers lose thousands of pounds from their pot in hidden fees.

As many as 16 different traders help themselves to the value of a typical stocks and shares ISA.

Then there is the latest wheeze dreamt up by the corporate crooks and spivs to defraud EU governments of billions of pounds of revenue.

Banks and hedge funds in the City of London run a racket called "dividend arbitrage," whereby shares are lent out and laundered through tax havens in order to avoid 15 per cent "withholding tax."

Many of the tax havens are under British jurisdiction and used by Britain's capitalist class and the super-rich to hide much of their wealth.

On Monday we commented on the report from the public accounts committee of MPs which detailed how giant companies avoid paying £25 billion in corporation tax on their profits. That's equivalent to 6p in the pound for every income tax payer or the revenue from year's council tax.

Undoubtedly, Chancellor George Osborne knows all about these nefarious activities.

He is, after all, one of those Cabinet multimillionaires who have made or inherited their fortune in the City.

No worries for them about rising rail fares, cuts in disability benefits or council tax caps and the prospect of eviction.

They will not be counting the pounds before deciding whether to turn on the heating.

They represent the pirates who are making billions out of the privatised energy and railway industries.

This government protects the robber barons in the City who swindle workers, pensioners and taxpayers in between lavish lunches with regulators and Cabinet ministers.

That's why Osborne announced on Monday that he will implement Sir John Vickers's proposed banking reforms only up to a point - and not for eight years.

Those recommendations were feeble enough, without giving the banks sufficient time to dodge around them and dump up to £12bn costs on their high street customers.

This Con-Dem government, like the last one, understands that regulation - whether by Ofgem, the Office of Rail Regulation or the Financial Services Authority - is a cynical farce .

Only public ownership of the railways, energy and the entire financial sector will rid us of the parasites who prosper at public expense.

There are no fairy godmothers waiting in the wings in Big Business Rip-Off Britain. Labour leader Ed Miliband is no Robin Hood.

Instead, there are the millions of workers, pensioners, students, unemployed and incapacitated who need to unite to form the biggest and most determined band of outlaws in our history.

Our aim in 2012 should be to sweep the Con-Dem "con-tricksters" out of office and challenge the Labour Party leadership to represent the interests of the millions not the millionaires.