Barometer | 4 February 2012

Bonus culture

Some have called for an end to a ‘bonus culture’ in banks and big firms. But bonus culture has been around a long time…
— Around the year ad 70, Roman legionnaires received bonuses of 25 denarii to supplement their salaries of 225 denarii.
— Bonuses were recorded by 14th-century Florentine banks, with one employee of the Peruzzi Company receiving 40 lire to supplement a salary of five times that sum.
— In 1965 India passed the Payment of Bonus Act, which entitled employees to a bonus of 8.33 per cent of their salary, and at least 100 rupees, providing they worked for more than 30 days in a year.

Who’s unbalanced?

Nicolas Sarkozy says ‘Britain has no industry any more’. How balanced is our economy compared with those of other rich nations?

% contributions to Gross Value Added, 2010

Course correction

The number of university applications has fallen by 7.4 per cent, year on year, after the increase in tuition fees.
Most affected subjects
Non-European languages -22%
Technologies -18%
Sciences with social sciences/arts -18%

Least affected subjects
Subjects allied to medicine +2.1%
Physical sciences -0.6%
Engineering -1.3%
Veterinary science -2.4%
Maths and computer science -2.8%

Blood on the tracks

Network Rail pleaded guilty to safety breaches over the deaths of two girls at a level crossing in Essex in 2005, three days after another girl was killed on the same stretch of line. How did people come to grief on the railways in 2010/11?

Suicide 208
Trespass 27
Slipping/running into train at station 7
Killed at level crossing 4
Rail workers killed on line 1
Assault 1
Train accidents 0
Source: Office of the Rail Regulator