Lloyd's Bank will spend £2.5 million on Christmas parties

"The bank is refusing to scale down its festive celebrations even though it was one of the beneficiaries of Gordon Brown’s £37 billion rescue package designed to save the British banking system from collapse.

A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB said the bank had decided to fully fund staff parties up to a limit of £35 a head. All 67,000 staff would be entitled to take part, adding up to a total of £2,345,000.

Lloyds TSB defended its decision by claiming its 67,000 staff deserved a festive reward after working hard through the year, and it described the outlay as “modest”.

It also emerged that Royal Bank of Scotland is to spend £1million on Christmas parties for its staff, despite receiving a £20 billion bailout."

(To be fair and balanced, here's one counterpoint):

"taxpayers" are already paying for the christmas parties of every other company and organisation; your local supermarket, the company that you bought your PC from, your electrical company, your local car dealership - they all have their christmas parties on your expense, albeit indirectly through the added prices you pay, why would you deny someone... a relatively cheap christmas party because they got a bailout?"