As money has rolled back into the coffers of the banks in the past six months, they've come up with plenty of inventive excuses to explain why, in City parlance, "bonuses are back":

The Beckham clause

Like star footballers, the banks say, their talented top staff are part of a hotshot international talent pool that could be poached by overseas rivals at any time if they are not richly rewarded. This is suspiciously reminiscent of the arguments used to justify the lavish remuneration of bosses such as RBS's Sir Fred Goodwin just before their firms hit the wall.

With God on our side

Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein (paid $68m in 2007) has given a series of unrepentant speeches and interviews, exclaiming at one point that "we're very important. We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth." He went on to quip that the bank was "doing God's work". Goldman has since caved in to shareholder pressure and put its pay policies to the vote.

School of hard knocks

Collared at Canary Wharf to justify their remuneration last week, some bankers pointed out that their working lives were tough – in particular the excessively long hours. "I work 12-hour days," said one. Much like the cleaners in the building.

Another version of this argument involves the terrifying levels of risk bankers say they are obliged to run. It's quite scary investing billions of pounds of someone else's money, and if it all goes wrong, they could lose their jobs; thousands already have. This argument plays badly among nurses, factory workers and others who also put in long hours and have also lost their jobs in droves.

Please don't let me be misunderstood

Some bankers have shown their sensitive side and admitted they've been hurt by the public pounding they've taken. They say they're just ordinary guys trying to get on with their jobs in what's only a business like any other, albeit a fantastically lucrative one. JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon said that public questioning of Wall Street bonuses amounted to "vilification of corporate America". Diddums.

Wasn't me, guv

Throughout the credit crunch, banks have sought to remind the public that they weren't the only villains. At the CBI conference last month, Stephen Hester, the man with the job of picking up the pieces at RBS, admitted that a bit of humility was in order, but added that consumers must also take a long, hard look at their own behaviour. "We must all of us get it," he said. "Part of the expansion of the last decade was not real. It was built on an unsustainable tidal wave of borrowing and we can't go back to that."

Pay up or I'm off!

This is the argument that top bankers are hard-nosed wheeler-dealers, who would gladly leave their employer and sell their services to the highest bidder, if necessary by flitting overseas. It's also widely used in the Mayfair hedge fund industry, including by the "hedgies" themselves, whose latest putative home of choice, with Dubai up the creek, seems to be Switzerland. Just the kind of committed and loyal Brits the country needs to bring it around.