Why not a maximum wage?

And the award for stateing the bloody obveius this week goes to Mr. David Cameron, leader of the Consirvative party, wanabe PM, ex public school boy and all round media darrrllinggg.
Seems to be aiming at a very large, slow moveing public band wagon hear. How about lowering the MPs pay a bit as well. As for a maximum wage Bill, sorry to say, that smacks a bit of an over controling state, go getters who prove there worth are entitled to what that brings, money. Yes, the supidly paid, like top footballers, sould have to pay very high rates of tax, if they intend to carry on liveing and working- or is it playing- in this countrybut whats the problem with the drive to get on.

One measure indicates that by 2008, Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since the early years of the 20th century. The richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, with individuals in the top 1% of the population each possessing total household wealth of £2.6m or more. And it is noticeable that the rate of increase started to take off in the 1980s.

The growing gap between high earners and the rest of society is politically, socially and economically damaging and intolerable. There is also evidence that it has environmentally damaging as well. While the Labour government has done something for those on the lowest incomes by the introduction of the NMW and WTC, it has been unable to reduce inequality, mainly because it has failed to halt the boom of wealth at the top. It has never been clearer that gross inequality damages not just those at the very bottom, but all within society.

All evidence suggests as pointed out in the "Spirit Level" that countries such as Sweden, Norway and Japan where there are not such huge inequalities are better placed to climb out of the recession.

This is really a no news item from the Guardian. Simple example - a person at Stoke council employed full time on NMW is £12064 , apply the multiplier of 20 as stated is £241,280 does this now mean Mr Laarschott can justify asking for a rise in wages of £50k ?

Why not a maximum wage?

If you think about it for a moment, a maximum wage would be an extremely dangerous thing to be introduced. It is not for the state to determine what people should or should not be paid (beyond the welfare aspect of a minimum wage).

Who is to say what this 'maximum wage' should be? If it is to be set at for example £90,000 a year, that is still far and away beyond what is earned by so many ordinary working people in places such as this. Would it really make anyone feel better to know that the highest paid are on a mere 5 or 6 times your own wage?

But what if the maximum is set at a mere £20,000 a year. And indeed why not? What if people like me and you who don't earn a great deal have to take in fact a pay CUT to comply with this maximum wage? Why indeed should it not be set at less than whatever Bill Cawley earns?

As soon as you accept the principle that government can interfere in pay in this way, not only are you massively extending the power and influence of the already overmighty 'state' but you are opening up a whole new can of worms that could lead to government having far greater control over individual peoples lives.

The very rich will just move to America or Europe (because they can). The people who will have to suffer with the policy will be ordinary people like us and Bill Cawley!

In many ways numbers are irrelevent to this argument. Since 1979 we have had a mantra that "I" is much more important than "We"

Our public services are now full of people doing whatever it takes to build a nice career then moving on to the next short term target to clamber up the greasy pole.

When they have clambered to the top or fallen off part way up they re-invent themselves as consultants and fleece the public purse even more

Where is the concept of "service" to your community and fellow human beings in this?

Where is the stability and long term planning that a society needs ( yes there is such a thing as society). Just look how many senior officers Stoke have had in the past decade and look at the state of our affairs

The market obsessed private sector has seen the few become incredibly wealthy with again little in the way of a social conscience in terms of accepting their need to pay for those less fortunate than themselves in the form of a fair progressive tax system . Nobody should seek to be a tax exile .

This greed has had a knock on effect and we now have polite terms such as "consumer needs" for what in many cases is just plain selfishness and lack of consideration for others. Families who work are under strain due to the so called need for "flexibility" in the labour market created by this culture whilst many more sit excluded on benefits again making no meaningful contribution other than costing the criminal justice and health services quite a bit of money .

In my view an election period should give us the option of a party that wanted to create a Britain that could become a strong social democracy , however until the present emphasis on individualism is challenged and reversed in favour of a much greater emphasis on the value of society as a whole then very little will change for the better .

Once again, there are people on here peddling some VERY dangerous ideas. The answer to Johnny's problem (and I don't accept that it is in fact a problem) is simple:

The state would have to allocate people to jobs and you WILL work where you're told and you WILL earn the money that we determine as fair.

That is the only possible answer to the questions you have raised. Once again, it doesn't take many moments of thought to realise the gaping hole in the very centre of this socialist logic.

Is it any wonder socialism brought us the Cambodian killing fields? It was precisely the same logic as that espoused by Mssrs Cawley and Johnnyf!

Yes Shaun, a form of socialism did bring us Cambodians Killing Fields, and I'll add that led to a fritening build up of very nasty weppons and misstrust leading the Cold War. It may have also gone some way to the aparling human rights record held by China. Just like a form of nationiselm brought about the Holoacoust, a mad man invading large parts of westen Europe and uitermitly World War Two. Anything that goes 100% un-cheaqed will do this. This is why we live in a demercraticly ran counrty, with a govenment and opprsistion, it don't get out of hand then. I'm a donkey jackett wareing old socialist, but I see the problems a maxamin wage would bring, so its not a problem with socialism is it.

Rather dishwater arguments Shaun. Firstly, it is curious that you should mention the National Minimum wage because for most of the 90s the Tories were opposed to the principle.

The one aspect of Tory policy that the right held a great deal of store by was the notion of "trickle down" and lower taxes for the wealthy. However the impact of these policies have been calamitous. By almost every measure, inequality has become more pronounced over the last 30 year. Stellar pay rises for the richest 0.5% and below-par gains for the bottom 5% have offset New Labour's efforts to redistribute wealth to the poorest. But perhaps the biggest shift is the widening gulf between those in the middle and those at the top. Western economies have been hijacked by the super-rich. In these new “plutonomies” it is the spending power of the elite that holds sway. The chief impact has been on asset prices: big-ticket purchases at the top end have pulled up prices all down the scale. The housing market provides the best example: the rise of the super-rich has helped fuel a 180% increase in prices over the past decade, taking home ownership, particularly in the south east, beyond the means of the average wage-earner.

Shaun parrots the cry that we were hearing in 97 that in the eventuality of a Labour win then the rich would leave. Phil Collins and others said that they would go. Sadly, few of them did. If this threat is repeated before a cowering population again I suggest that anyone who says that they intend leaving and don't should be sued for breach of contract.

Amongst all these threats its perhaps worth stating that the UK loses £18.5 billion a year in tax revenue to off shore tax havens amongst them the owner of the Daily Mail who likes to lecture the population on patriotism. So I suppose for the wealthy who keep saying they intend to leave its worth saying that there money has in the most part already left and they are playing catch up.

Shaun in saying that such policies that I advocate lead to the killing fields of Pol Pot seems to be playing a variant of Godwin's Law which states, to repeat, that the further an online discussion goes on the greater the likelihood of someone invoking Hitler and the Nazis approaches 1. In this case in an attempt to discedit any critic he invoves ome ludicrous comparison with Cambodia in the 70s, as I said a variant

Actually the model I favour is Scandanavia I was reading an article in the Economists on the most civilised countries in the world to live and Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden appear in the top 5 in terms of community, well being, education and economic growth all countries that have largely followed a more equal form of economic distribution than the UK and US who are well down the list.

Folks if you want to knock down such Tory grimgribber as above I suggest this as a course of action. The temple has been pulled down so that no stone is left standing, the peebles pulverized , the fields are salted and the entire population put on a community volunteering programme for two months.

Warren, you are right. These ideas put about by Cawley and Johnny are so extreme and dangerous that even the Labour Party are not actually giving them a moments thought. No sane or reasonable person would. I am most definately NOT accusing Labour of purusing policies that would end in any way in the same sorts of attrocities we saw in Cambodia. Indeed, on the contrary, it is to Labour's credit that they are NOT that sort of party.

However, I'm afraid Cambodia arose from the logic of socialism taken to extremes. It is my view that pure 100% socialism is inevitably dictatorial and evil. Fortunately, we do not have that sort of socialism here. Here socialism is tempered and moderated so that they could never pursue their logic to its natural conclusion.

The only reason I mention Cambodia is because the maximum wage and state control over divison of labour seems to me the very first step down that route.

Neither would it work, because what Bill Cawley and others do not deny is that the very wealthy and able would simply leave the country and leave the rest of us to suffer from these terrible socialist policies.

So ok, you have your national maximum wage. All the most wealthy and the best and the brightest have left the country. We now have a football team made up of people who are not good enough to get jobs elsewhere, we have bankers who are not good enough to get jobs elsewhere, we have senior public servants who are still here because they are not good enough to get jobs elsewhere. Meanwhile, the very best Britain has to offer are now helping foreign economies to shoot ahead of us in all fields. Congratulations Mr Cawley, you have just destroyed our civilisation.

It really doesn't take long to reach those conclusions if you sit down for longer than half a second and think about the consequences of what you propose.

P.S. I think many accept the national minimum wage as one of the few positive things to come out of this government. The Conservative Party accepted that the minimum wage was here to stay exactly 10 years ago so I don't see why you are so surprised to hear me support it.

Of course, if the best you can say about this government is that they introduced the minimum wage in their first 3 years in office and then did nothing else of value ever since, its not a very good record is it? Perhaps they should have gone back in 2001 then?

Sorry Bill, but I think you're looking from the wrong end of the telescope. The fat, greedy b*****ds will always demand a king's ransom for their talents. Although I agree they always threaten to sod off if the Tories lose, but never do.
I'm more concerned about the minimum wage. Not so much that it's woefully under-pegged, more that in Stoke it's become the statutory wage. Surely it was intended as a safety net and not a suffocating blanket?

OH yes I well remember Phil Collins saying he would leave the country if Labour won the 97 election, I also remember my response, it went something like, "Well, (insert the 2 words you know the one's) then and don't let the door hit you in the arse"
Seemed Phil 'Mr multi millionare' Collins didn't mind making large sums of cash from songs about how awful it is to be poor and hungry and homeless, But if a party gets elected that might addresss those issues, he's off, but surprise surprise it turns out his word is about as good as his songwriting, Anyone remember Genesis BEFORE they became a 'pop' band?

And I agree with tonyjohnt, the minimum wage is/was a good idea for the low paid manual workers (I am one) But like everything else it has been exploited by bosses to keep wages down, they ALL pay minimum wage now especially in Stoke, and when you take one of these jobs you know there is little or no chance of your pay going up anytime soon, and even if there were other jobs out there there's no point in looking because the pay is the same. and dire as it is I can only see it getting worse under the Tories, The minimum wage will stay at whatever level it is when/IF 'they' take over for a long time, Perhaps this is one of their 'cuts'.

Shaun, I'm trying to get understand your thought process. Its not easy as its more like shrapnel whizzing around. I'm no expert on South East Asia in the 60s and 70s, but Cambodia and its experiences under Pol Pot are more likely down to the Vietnam War, President Nixon's bombing campaign in 1970 and the resultant destabilising effect on Prince Sihanouk and Lol Non than Harold Wilson's Prices and Incomes Policy.

However I stand to be corrected.

As for England's Football Team ho on the World Cup in 1966. I wonder what the higher rate taxation rate as then?

Or given today sees the death of Malcolm McLaren why was Britain so creative culturally in the late 70s presumably it was down to the flat tax policy of James Callaghan.

Saying that a desire to see a more equal and open society naturally leads to Pol Pot is like saying voting Tory naturally leads you to Harold Shipman... But hold on he was a member of the Tory Party!!!

Shaun, you are simply deluded my dear! The distribution of wealth and the distribution of intelligence and ability have no correlation what-so-ever! Indeed, as a home brewer, I've observed how the scum rises to the top.
As I think Bill has made plain, it's the gaping disparities that matter. I know people who work their guts out for a pittance and then see Jordan ( the brightest and best )? earn 150k for marrying another non entity.

I've worked "back-stage" at many corporate functions and can testify that although many think the line between rich and poor is an inch... it's a mile.

One for Work'us Bennett. Its an American review of the Spirit Level and is easily undersood even for one who gets Winston Churchill, Winston Smith or even Wolfie Smith mixed up.

"And the nations that do the best, on yardstick after yardstick, all turn out to share one basic trait. They all share their wealth.

“If you want to know why one country does better or worse than another,” as Wilkinson and Pickett note simply, “the first thing to look at is the extent of inequality.”

The United States, the developed world’s most unequal major nation, ranks at or near the bottom on every quality-of-life indicator that Wilkinson and Pickett examine. Portugal and the UK, nations with levels of inequality that rival the United States, rank near that same bottom.

Japan and the Scandinavian nations, the world’s most equal major developed nations, show the exact opposite trend line. They all rank, on yardstick after yardstick, at or near the top.

And we see the same pattern within the United States. America’s most equal states — New Hampshire, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Vermont — all consistently outperform the least equal, states like Mississippi and Alabama.

People in more equal societies simply live longer, healthier, and happier lives than people in more unequal societies. And not just poor people in these societies, Wilkinson and Pickett emphasize continually, but all people.

If you have a middle class income in an unequal society, you’re going to be more stressed and less healthy — mentally and physically — than someone with the same income in a more equal society.

So what makes inequality so potent a curse? Wilkinson and Pickett explore the impact of inequality from all sorts of angles. Sociologically, for instance, they explain how “the stresses of a more unequal society — of low social status — have penetrated family life and relationships,” how inequality undercuts the sense and reality of community and fosters, in their place, suspicion and fear.

“We tend to choose our friends from among our near equals and have little to do with those much richer or much poorer,” the two authors note. “And when we have less to do with other kinds of people, it’s harder for us to trust them.”

The wider the economic gaps between us, The Spirit Level helps us understand, the more social status matters. The more social status matters, the more likely we will be to feel shame and humiliation. The more stress these emotions evoke in us, the weaker we get.

“Chronic stress,” The Spirit Level observes, “wears us down and wears us out.”

Want the biochemistry behind that wearing down? The Spirit Level has it for you, in passages you don’t have to be a biochemist to comprehend. Wilkinson and Pickett can speak academese as well as anyone. But they don’t speak that here. They’ve attempted instead to make a generation’s worth of scholarship on inequality accessible to the general public. And they’ve succeeded".

Work'us that Pol Pot claiming that he was acting in the interests of Socialism is rather like saying Tomás de Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor was acting in the interest of Catholicism, or the Thugee Behman for Hinduism or for that matter Harold Shipman for Conservatism

There is a belief that under Pol Pot's regime Cambodia was the country that came the closest to existing as a pure communalist state. Collective farms were implemented as the sole form of egalitarian, subsistence living, and the campaigns of killings were implemented as a way of eliminating the intellectual opposition of those who refused to participate in the system.

In late 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The Cambodian army was easily defeated, and Pol Pot fled to the Thai border. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a puppet government under Heng Samrin, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges. This was followed by widespread defections to the Vietnamese by Khmer Rouge officials in Eastern Cambodia, largely motivated by the fear that they would be accused of collaboration even if they did not defect.

Pol Pot retained a sufficient following to keep fighting in a small area in the west of the country. At this point the PRC, which had earlier supported Pol Pot, attacked, creating a brief Sino-Vietnam War.

Pol Pot, an enemy of the Soviet Union, also gained support from Thailand and the US. In particular, the US vetoed the allocation of Cambodia's United Nations General Assembly seat to a representative of Heng Samrin's government. Influenced by realpolitik the US directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot, who espoused radically revised variant of Maoism adapted to Khmer nationalism. His nationalism showed itself in the elimination of Cambodia's ethnic minorities. Muslims were completely liquidated.

Envisaging a perfectly egalitarian agrarianism, the Khmer Rouge favored a direct route to communism, thus bypassing the intermediate stage of socialism. Anti-modern and isolationist, Pol Pot was quite the opponent of Soviet Communist orthodoxy. Because he was anti-Soviet, the United States, Thailand and People's Republic of China considered him preferable to the pro-Vietnamese government.

To attach the tag Socialist to Pol Pot whose actions were also governed by psychological flaws is very strange. A belief in Socialism whould encompass a large group of people as kindly as George Landsbury and others who obviously were not serial killers.

I understand from your profile that you got a MA from Staffs Uni. How with that line in logic?

Work'us that Pol Pot claiming that he was acting in the interests of Socialism is rather like saying Tomás de Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor was acting in the interest of Catholicism, or the Thugee Behman for Hinduism or for that matter Harold Shipman for Conservatism

There is a belief that under Pol Pot's regime Cambodia was the country that came the closest to existing as a pure communalist state. Collective farms were implemented as the sole form of egalitarian, subsistence living, and the campaigns of killings were implemented as a way of eliminating the intellectual opposition of those who refused to participate in the system.

In late 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The Cambodian army was easily defeated, and Pol Pot fled to the Thai border. In January 1979, Vietnam installed a puppet government under Heng Samrin, composed of Khmer Rouge who had fled to Vietnam to avoid the purges. This was followed by widespread defections to the Vietnamese by Khmer Rouge officials in Eastern Cambodia, largely motivated by the fear that they would be accused of collaboration even if they did not defect.

Pol Pot retained a sufficient following to keep fighting in a small area in the west of the country. At this point the PRC, which had earlier supported Pol Pot, attacked, creating a brief Sino-Vietnam War.

Pol Pot, an enemy of the Soviet Union, also gained support from Thailand and the US. In particular, the US vetoed the allocation of Cambodia's United Nations General Assembly seat to a representative of Heng Samrin's government. Influenced by realpolitik the US directly and indirectly supported Pol Pot, who espoused radically revised variant of Maoism adapted to Khmer nationalism. His nationalism showed itself in the elimination of Cambodia's ethnic minorities. Muslims were completely liquidated.

Envisaging a perfectly egalitarian agrarianism, the Khmer Rouge favored a direct route to communism, thus bypassing the intermediate stage of socialism. Anti-modern and isolationist, Pol Pot was quite the opponent of Soviet Communist orthodoxy. Because he was anti-Soviet, the United States, Thailand and People's Republic of China considered him preferable to the pro-Vietnamese government.

To attach the tag Socialist to Pol Pot whose actions were also governed by psychological flaws is very strange. A belief in Socialism whould encompass a large group of people as kindly as George Landsbury and others who obviously were not serial killers.

I understand from your profile that you got a MA from Staffs Uni. How with that line in logic?

If you can't understand the dangers of the socialist ideas that you are suggesting I can see why you DON'T have a politics MA, Bill. You will also see that I can be just as patronising as you can.

Your history lesson was fascinating, it really was, but irrelevant I'm afraid. I'm not saying that Britain is Cambodia, or anything like it. I'm saying that the attrocities there arose from taking socialist logic to its extremes.

Since that one has clearly taxed you, lets get back to basics. Friedrich Hayek wrote in his 'Road to Serfdom' the key criticism's of socialism. This illustrates quite clear the psychological flaw at the very heart of the socialist ideology.

The theory was even published in a set of very helpful cartoons that charts the move from socialist idea to human atrocity. These were published just after the war:

We start of with:
1) War forces National Planning- to permit total mobilization of the economy, we gladly surrender many freedoms.

2) Many want 'planning' to stay- effectively, whats good in war is good in peace.

3) The 'planners' promise utopia- a plan for farmers goes well in rural areas, a plan for industrial workers is popular in the cities. Many of the planners are elected to office

4) But they can't agree on one utopia- unity is gone. The planners begin to argue amongst themselves. Each has their own pet plan.

5) And citizens can't agree either- when the 'planners' finally reach temporary agreement, citizens start to disagree. What the farmer wants, the factory worker does not.

6) The 'planners' hate to force agreement- most 'planners' are well meaning idealists who just know that everyone will agree eventually.

7) They try to sell the plan to all- 'planners' establish a giant propaganda machine to 'educate' people to a uniform view.

8) The gullible find agreement- meanwhile, growing national confusion leads to protest meetings. The least educated are convinced by fiery orators and form a party.

9) Confidence in 'planners' fades- the more the planners improvise, the greater the disturbance to normal business. People start to feel the planners can't get things done.

10) the 'strong' man is given power- in desperation, the 'planners' authorize a new party leader to create a plan and force obediance.

11) The Party takes over the country- confusion is so great that the only solution is that obediance MUST be obtained at all costs.

12) A negative aim welds party unity- inflame the majority in common cause against a scapegoat

13) No one opposes the leaders plan- obediance is always the number one priority. The secret police are ruthless.

14) Your profession is 'planned'- workers are allocated to jobs to meet the 'plan'.

15) Wages are planned- (oh look, a maximum wage!!!)

16) Your thinking is 'planned'- in the unintentionally created dictatorship, there is no room for difference of opinion. All posters, radio and press peddle the same message.

17) Your recreation is 'planned'- sports and amusements are 'planned' in all regimented nations. The planners just can't stop.

18) Your discipline is 'planned'- what used to be error is now a crime against the state.

As Hayek says, "so ends the road to serfdom".

If after all that, you still can't see the narrative links between the socialism of states such as Cambodia and those that Bill Cawley and others on here have espoused, thenthere really is one born every minute.

And if you still don't think that socialism is fundamentally flawed...well I'm sure there are candidates you can vote for. They'll talk a lot about government control, national plans, maximum wages and controlling private business...

But Frederich Von Hayek was wrong!!!

Not coincidentally, the low-tax, high-income countries are mostly English-speaking ones that share a direct historical lineage with 19th-century Britain and its theories of economic laissez-faire. These countries include Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.

As I said in an earlier post the high-tax, high-income states are the Nordic social democracies, notably Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which have been governed by left-of-center social democratic parties for much of the last 60 years. They combine a healthy respect for market forces with a strong commitment to antipoverty programs. Budgetary outlays for social purposes average around 27 percent of gross domestic product in the Nordic countries and just 17 percent of GDP in the English-speaking countries.

On average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on most measures of economic performance. As I said again earlier all 4 countires appear in the top group in quality of life indices that include community, social capital and pretty high in entrepreneurship. Poverty rates are much lower there, and national income per working-age population is on average higher. Unemployment rates are roughly the same in both groups, just slightly higher in the Nordic countries. The budget situation is stronger in the Nordic group, with larger surpluses as a share of GDP.

The Nordic countries maintain their dynamism despite high taxation in several ways. Most important, they spend lavishly on research and development and higher education. All of them, but especially Sweden and Finland, have taken to the sweeping revolution in information and communications technology and leveraged it to gain global competitiveness. Sweden now spends nearly 4 percent of GDP on R&D, the highest ratio in the world today. On average, the Nordic nations spend 3 percent of GDP on R&D, compared with around 2 percent in the English-speaking nations.

The Nordic states have also worked to keep social expenditures compatible with an open, competitive, market-based economic system. Tax rates on capital are relatively low. Labor market policies pay low-skilled and otherwise difficult-to-employ individuals to work in the service sector, in key quality-of-life areas such as child care, health, and support for the elderly and disabled.

The results for the households at the bottom of the income distribution are astoundingly good, especially in contrast to the mean-spirited neglect that now passes for America and increasingly British social policy. The U.S. spends less than almost all rich countries on social services for the poor and disabled, and it gets what it pays for: the highest poverty rate and child mortality rates among the rich countries and an exploding prison population. Actually, by shunning public spending on health, the U.S. gets much less than it pays for, because its dependence on private health care has led to a ramshackle system that yields mediocre results at very high costs.

Von Hayek was wrong. In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom or the killing fields of Cambodia but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness. In short the Good Society.

Rather powerful piece by JK Roling in the Times today on patriotism and paying taxes. It stands as an excellent rebuke to arguments on this blog on the rich and talented leaving the country as a consequences of higher taxes.

"I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug"

Chief executive of BP Tony Hayward received a 41% rise in his remuneration package in 2009 - meaning he took home about £4m in salary, bonus and share awards.

This was despite the firm seeing last year's profits fall by 45% to $13.96bn (£9.2bn).

Andrew Marr Show had the Leader of Plaid Cmyru on speaking on the need for a maximum wage as have the pressure group Compass. The idea is out there.

I wonder why no outrage is being expressed following a news item on Radio this morning on Radio 4 that the pay of the heads of the top 100 companies has increased by 400% in the last decade whilst average pay has gone up by only 13%. But the point is that it is not performance related and that value of the top companies has actually fallen

First Bill, no outrage is being expressed because this report was on Radio 4 - which probably means only you and I were listening.

You raise a good point though, it certainly makes a mockery of us all being in this together