Rein in excessive executive pay before it's too late

For anyone old enough to remember the 70s, the strikes that have broken out in the past few weeks are a reminder of the industrial strife that was a regular feature of life back then.

As a child at the time, power cuts and picket lines seemed quite fun. They were not so amusing, of course, for the adults.

Today’s union activism might not quite add up to a winter of discontent, but it is certainly a Christmas of irritation.

It’s easy to blame it all on the swaggering rabble-rouser union leaders who have crawled out of the woodwork. But those union barons are tapping into a deep sense of unfairness that lies behind the current wave of unrest and that also contributed to the Brexit vote.

Namely, that business leaders – many of whom were pro-Remain – are remote from, if not hostile to, the interests of ordinary people: and that they are vastly overpaid.