No 10 aide: Don’t turn screw on City

Downing Street adviser Jo Johnson has warned against piling taxes on to bankers, saying that the Government should not be “screwing them for every last penny”.

The Tory MP for Orpington accepted that bankers were responsible for the financial collapse but slammed those who sought to “demonise” City workers, adding that the financial sector paid billions of pounds in tax every year.

Speaking at a Lib-Dem conference fringe meeting last night Mr Johnson, who heads David Cameron’s Downing Street Policy Unit, said: “The top one per cent of people by income are generating 30 per cent of all income tax. That sounds to me like a progressive system.”

The MP, the younger brother of Mayor Boris Johnson, also dismissed calls for a “living wage” law and criticised the “myth” of underemployment, saying: “If you look at the figures, 80 per cent of people who are in part-time work, want to be in part-time work.”