Snouts still in the trough — and now bosses want 20 per cent of every profit

I like to think I helped start the national debate about fairness and executive pay with an article here in May 1993 headlined ‘Snouts in the Trough’, illustrated by Garland with pin-striped porkers helping themselves to huge portions of gravy. Since then, bosses’ pay packets have ballooned — the heat in 1993 was caused by £140,000 salaries for water company chairmen, whereas this year more than 4,000 City bankers are set to receive million-plus bonuses, and one, Driss Ben-Brahim of Goldman Sachs, is said to be collecting (presumably in an armoured truck) £50 million. But the arguments against fat-cattery remain stuck in early 1980s leftist rhetoric: the TUC’s Brendan Barber admits it’s wrong to resent ‘proper rewards for hard work or risk-taking’, but points out that the Goldman bonus pool alone would be enough to give every British worker £350; Peter Wilby in the Guardian keeps it simple by calling for ‘a return to the politics of envy’.