Last time I looked, John Lewis had not been bailed out by the taxpayer. Last time I looked, John Lewis had not been responsible, at least in part, for the global economic meltdown back in 2008. Last time I looked, John Lewis was not offering some selected staff bonuses greater than 1 million pounds.
No one objects to ordinary staff in banks getting some kind of bonus for the general banking work, especially if it is linked to a performance target. Its the fact that banks in particular have been awarding astronomical bonuses to gamblers basically -and gamblers that have played and rigged the markets and still lost money at that - and then try to justify such bonuses by claiming that unless they offer them they will not attract the right calibre of staff. If the current staff represent the right calibre, the banking industry is indeed in dire straights.
They would be better employed firing the lot and hiring up the gamblers and hustlers frequenting the casinos. They could probably do a better job, and would probably be only to happy to do the job at sensible wage too, rather than vastly bloated sums some of these "investment bankers" currently get.