The solution is easy : Mr Applegarth should be given another job immediately.

john o'bacon, elmstead, uk

Well, we're all mad as hell, here. What are we going to do - carry on whinging? What we need is to import a French trade union official to organise a march on Westminster and the City, with banners, And tents. And we don't move unless the police ask us to. And the government would be so embarrassed they would give us what we want. And we all want a million quid if we lose our jobs, right?

john problem, winchester, uk

Britain has always excelled at rewarding failure, that is why they have the politicians that they have today.

Peter Fordham, Pego, Spain

As we are all shareholders now surely something can be done to stop this travesty, even if it means changing the law to do it.
Nobody can justify this.

warren, hastings,

Look! I've told you before.

If you want to attract the best executives you have to pay top dollar.

What is the problem?

R Bingham, Lauzun, France

Are we the only country to reward failure? Any chance of a job for me where I can mess things up and still walk away with money most people find it hard to earn in 10 years?

V Tan, London,

It may be offensive but not as offensive as the timing of Applegarth's sale of millions of pounds worth of NR shares before they collapsed. I bet within a year this weasel will have another top job, possibly working for the increasingly desperate Gordon Brown as an economic adviser.

Neil McF, Southampton, England

Applegarth won't accept responsibility for the Banks failure but as always, with executives today, accepted the yearly bonus and high pay for dodgy lending strategy that paid handsomely for the last few years.
He is hardly likely to rush out to find paid employment if his bounty for failure is paying out at £63000 a month!

David Thijm, Stourbridge, UK

It may be offensive but not as offensive as the timing of Applegarth's sale of millions of pounds worth of NR shares before they collapsed. I bet within a year this weasel will have another top job, possibly working for the increasingly desperate Gordon Brown as an economic adviser.

Neil McF, Southampton, England

More than most people earn in a lifetime!

Michael, London,

This disgraceful £760,000 payout also demonstrates extreme and continuing incompetence, even naivete on the part of this Government . Particularly in its dealings with the City and Banking.

The payout will be seen by the City as a benchmark payment for failure, approved by and sanctioned by the Government.

Equally Government approval to continuance of what are grossly excessive - but clearly defective incentive payment systems
The Government owns (but clearly cannot effectively manage or control), the wreck of the Northern Rock Bank.
Notwithstanding any amount of political rhetoric, this sort of behaviour can never be accepted as either common sense or proper use of Taxpayers funds.

Keith O, Croydon, UK

I entirely agree with John from London. Just one additional point, as the the bank has now been nationalised, the decision to pay this man must have been approved by the government.
One more reason not to vote Labout next time!

Ken, Orpington, Kent, UK

Frankly speaking, this is just typical of the contempt our so-called betters hold us ordinary people in! How on Earth can any payment be justified to this total incompetent!

All I can say is:
"Come the revolution we'll need a very long wall and an awful lot of bullets!".

Clive Dudley, Plymouth, England

Would Northern Rock have been rescued by the government if it wasn't slap bang in the middle of loads of Nulaber-voting constituencies?

Cheer up, everybody, this is just another cost to be born by you all as the price of having a Socialist government.

You know what to do at the next election now, surely ???

Either that or, like me, get out while you can.

Jon Leigh, Southern, France

now you see why the great isn't in britain anymore as you see, we are mainly known as the UK but we are wimps we allow the banking institutions to make themselves ric her at our expense, like the unlawful c harges banks charge on c omputer generated letters to us, when we get charged for going overdrawn massive sums of £35 pounds, when the sum overdrawn is usually between £1-50 at most, on 95% of times, plus the interest that then generates is out of proportion to the whole amount, use the financ ial ombudsman association they may be able to get the bank to pay back as they did for me, we all hav e to fight the cooperate world, as thats what is making the money which stays among the rich people, Stand up for your rights.

jonathan rose, GT Torrington, devonshire

If my memory serves me correctly Johnson Matthey had a bank which ran into trouble and had to be taken over by the Bank of England. Its directors were then sent packing without so much as a penny piece of compensation. Why hasn't this happened at NR?

Chris, Birmingham,

Disgraceful, outrageous and symptomatic of much that wrong with this country - reward incompetence and failure, and turn a blind eye to corruption while thousands of hard-working staff are likely to made redundant for no fault of their own! No wonder UK plc is going down the tubes.
It stinks and so does any government that allows travesties like this to continually happen.

Oxford Don, Oxford, UK

The Sanctity of Contract?

This man had a Directors Service Contract with a year's notice. Do we or do we not protect the sanctity of contract?

Alistairs Solicitors, South West, UK

I for one am applying for the job. I have no experience what so ever in the finacial market but for that kind of money i'll give it a go, and quite frankly who cares if I manage to make an even more of a gargantuan cock-up as Mr applegate, as I can only assume I would receive an even more lucrative payout.

Sam Matthews, Leeds,

I think the Financial Services Authority (FSA) should be interested in this case under the recent introduction of the Treating Customers Fairly rules better known as TCF in the financial services industry. Clearly, other customers are not now being treated fairly as preferential loan treatment is being awarded to an ex director of the business. if that isn't abusing the rules then i don't know what is.

Paul Farrant, Sevenoaks, Kent

Mr Applegarth can I have my money back please?

kirk, Rotherham, UK

Nothing will ever change with these disgusting golden handshakes no matter what the ordinary man in the street says.

The people who are in a position to change it are on a similar gravy train !!!!!

As an example, everyone in this country complains about buying and selling a house but the system still remains.

philip, Andover, England

This man should be on a criminal charge not a 3/4m payoff for his reckless and greed driven behaviour. How he can have the bare faced cheek to blame the BoE for the failure of his business model defies belief.

Banking is the only business on the planet which gets away with privatising profits and nationalising losses. He and these city jokers knew the debt bubble would burst eventually on the back of CDOs and sub prime but why would they care? As the rewards for the volume of business they have put through the books for the last 10 years has meant they they and their offspring are made for generations.

Frankly this is disgusting. If the British population wasn't such a docile apathetic mass this man would be swinging by his Versace tie from the nearest lamp post!

John, London, England

An utter disgrace. Have the new NR management taken leave of their sences?

Roger Sherrin, Sherborne , Dorset

The FSA could fine him £760,00?

SH, Leeds, UK

The world is upside-down. You do a good job you get redundant: «sorry mate, last in first out». You blow up millions in smoke You get a cash-prize like this.

Talk about meritocracy...

Rui, Lisbon,

Disgraced and disgraceful. I presume Mr Applegarth will be needing the money, as it may be hard for him to find any kind of meaningful employment in the years to come. I hope he invests the money wisely, rather than with some sort of "Mickey Mouse" financial institution.

peter koeb, al jezur, portugal

£760,000,, dont worry, he cant even buy a 2 bed falt for that now.

Oliver , Reading, UK

Talk about adding insult to injury!

Don Basilio, Cambridge, UK

Northern Rock is behaving no differently to any other major company - incompetent staff would get 1 months salary, incompetent directors a year plus pension rights. Shareholders (in this case taxpayers) should question companies' renumeration policies.

Steve, London, UK

It has been normal in this country to pay them well that would destroy everything...

satan has the whole world deceived.

Hugh E Torrance, London, England

The jobs people must look for are bankers and polititians.

adam, Durham, uk

Even if, as Mr Appleyard says, the Bank of England is at fault for not allowing Lloyds/TSB to buy NR, it was still the fault of Mr Appleyard that NR was in the position that it was, otherwise nobody would have had to rescue it. Mind you, it is a common theme in business, both public and private, that in the good times it is down to the chairman and directors, in the bad times it's always somebody elses fault. The trouble is the people that really suffer are the staff, who had no say in anything.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

A complete and utter bloody disgrace. through his abysmal mismanagement the British taxpayer has had to acquire a 100billion, that's right 100billion, white elephant. Not only should this incompetent swine get nothing, his assets should be sequestered and he should be flayed. What he and his cohorts did is nothing short of a crime. They frankly should go to jail.

Billy Barnett, HK,

Someone should put a curse on the money given to these Chief Executives, instead of everyone simply accepting that awarding them vast sums of money for failure is justified. No doubt justice will catch up with them all in due time....

Bob B, Fareham, Hampshire

Money goes to money.If you deliver you get massive payouts,if you FAIL to deliver you get massive payouts.What's the difference?Corrupt ,immoral and ridiculous.

john, shrewsbury, uk

What an interesting remuneration package. I wonder what sort of settlement other employees of the Rock, who had no control over the collapse, got when there services were dispensed with.
Maybe it is time that senior directors put as much effort into running the company as they put into securing their remuneration packages even when they fail.

tony wood, London, UK

Surely NR is having a laugh?!?!?!
This is simply unbelievable - the head-honcho who presided over the bank's demise is given this kind of money, while NR staff are soon to be fired, many of NR's mortgage customers find themselves in dire straights, & the tax payer is picking up the pieces.... If I had caused this much disaster to my company, I would have been hung, drawn & quartered. This is obscene!

Ash, Tunbridge Wells,

Six years ago after the bursting of the dotcom bubble and Enron scandal I advocated regulating the financial markets and bringing in more stringent controls on the excessive remuneration packages of senior financial and corporate managers.
Well, here we are again. The climate of corporate greed which has become endemic in Western corporate society persists, rewarding failure as well as success.
The present financial crisis has demonstrated the urgent need for a redistribution of wealth in the financial and business community.
The vast sums disappearing into the pockets of a minority who can't and/or won't spend it does not make economic sense. Neither does giving them favourable tax treatment or putting up the price of council tax, energy and transport, which hurts the majority of the population.
It is time to spread wealth around so that the middle class and poor can increase their purchasing power and thus generate economic growth

peter fieldman, paris, france

How can they justify these payments when they are being supported by the taxpayer. nany NR shareholders must view this with dismay.

Ian Ashton, Cornwall,

No banker ever seems to suffer a financial penalty, regardless of how incompetent or corrupt they are. I expect that even if all the savers had lost their money he would still be walking away with a fortune. Shameful.

Can I become a banker please?

David, St Albans, UK

Ridiculous. Utterley ridiculous that any organisation should reward incompetence. The logic behind paying very high salaries and bonus to execs is that "if you want the best then you pay more". NR appears to reward the worst performing execs and throws this logic out the window

Mark Wharton, Wantage, UK

what a sick joke.760000 quid for being incompetent banks need nationalizing now.

mike, coventry, U.K.