Boris Johnson: two-faced on bankers?

London Labour thinks its caught the London Mayor facing both ways over bankers and their pay. The latest attack in its Boris-bashing campaign comes from Karen Buck MP , who says his call yesterday for banks to show restraint over bonuses is a fig leaf: The mayor has been shamed into making noises about bankers' bonuses but his real position is shown by the energy he is spending on demands for no tax on bank bonuses, and opposing the higher top rate of tax. When push comes to shove Boris Johnson is in favour of words not action on bank bonuses. Has Boris been "shamed" into his latest move? It certainly makes sense in PR terms. A letter he's written to bank bosses urging restraint got a good showing in the Standard yesterday and precedes a meeting with some of them at City Hall today at which he says the same message will be sent. But though the move aligns Boris more closely with public opinion - and his party leader - I'm not convinced it's clear evidence of triangulation or inconsistency. Labour points to his demand last week for a meeting with Alistair Darling to argue against higher tax rates on top earners and windfall raids on bonuses - one day he's leading the Fat Cat Protection League, the next he's hauling them in from the alleys to tell them off for getting bloated. Yet Boris has taken much the same, two-track approach for several months . Though defending the banker sector, not least against the EU, he's also warned it that a failure to self-regulate over bonuses would make it an easy target for an avenging Labour government, with dreadful consequences for the economy as a whole. His latest initiative is a few shades more populist, but his basic position remains the same. When Karen Buck says Boris favours words rather than action, there's a sense in which she's not exactly right. Boris says he wants action on bonuses, but only from the banks themselves - and to be heard saying so loud and clear.