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There is one thing that is sufficiently clear these days as to brook no argument; the public hates bankers with a visceral passion and the idea of any of  them earning a bonus, let alone a large one, sends millions of people into paroxysms of splenetic rage. So the news that a senior figure in a bank we (more or less) own was to be paid a million pound bonus was always likely to prove beyond the pale. Conventional wisdom at Westminster has it that Labour has therefore been pretty smart to scent blood on this issue, that Hester should have foreseen the public outcry and that if he did not, the government should have put him right.

So far, so logical. But the trouble is this is another example of the political class lacking any kind of intellectual consistency.

The facts relating to RBS are pretty straightforward. When it was going bust, we, as tax-payers, intervened to save it. As a result, we ended up owning a bank with tens of billions of pounds’ worth of liabilities on its books. Put simply, if RBS prospers and we offload it for a profit, we’ll all make some money. If it flounders or, still worse, goes under, we will have to put our hands in our pockets to pay for it.

It was for this reason that the (Labour) government decided to run the bank like a proper commercial entity rather than a government department (which one could argue it effectively is). This meant keeping it at arm’s length and allowing UKFI and the board to try and find the best commercial banker to run it and reward him as it saw fit.

It picked Hester.

Now I don’t know whether Mr Hester is the best man for this job or not. I have no idea at all how easy it is to run a global bank or indeed whether there are lots of people who could do it just as well. If many of the comments on twitter are anything to go by, most of you think anyone could do his job. What I do know is that all three political parties (Labour when it was in government and the coalition since) decided sometime ago that its ministers were not best-placed to make these decisions and so set in place arrangements to allow others to do so.

But it seems that it is not the board but the government that runs RBS. Because when the board comes up with a plan politicians don’t like, they over-rule it.

Well, fine you may say. We own the bank. Why shouldn’t our representatives over-rule the board in the public interest?

But the real question is; where does it leave us? Or indeed RBS? Do we simply not want anyone who works there to be paid a bonus? And if we are happy that some people who do work there are paid one, how much would be acceptable;£100,000? 5000,000? Is RBS a bank or a government department? Is it to be ruled along the principles of market economics, or politics? And if it is a government department, why should its head be paid any more than the Prime Minister – or indeed the head of the civil service?

I am confused. So is pretty much everyone in the City. So, probably, are you. We may not expect much from our politicians, but a little intellectual consistency would be nice.

I don’t know what happens next. Maybe this will be seen as the moment politicians faced down the the City. But that doesn’t seem certain. My understanding is that Mr Hester spent much of the weekend considering his position. He decided it would look churlish to leave and is likely to stay for at least the next few months.

Perhaps, if he does leave and RBS gets along just fine, we will see this as another nail in the coffin of the myth of the super-banker. But if RBS struggles – and we have to pay for it – we’ll know who to blame. At some point politicians have to accept that they cannot have their cake and eat it. If they want to run the bank themselves and think they could do a better job, they should be honest enough to say so.