Yet it ought to cause some agonised soul-searching for the Labour leadership because David Cameron and Vince Cable have planted their flags so cheerfully on ground prepared by others.

Oh No ! Poor old Ed Milliband wont have anything to bleat about if this carries on. He's got to change his tack now that David Cameron has stolen his thunder. Perhaps he can start saying that the fat-cats need their exessive reward or they will leg-it abroad. That's got to be the way for Ed Miliband. You cant go agreeing with Cameron, an any issue.

This approach for Ed ties in with what Labour did when they were in power:sucking up to the get-rich-quick brigade so they could all get nice city advisory jobs when they leave politics. So Ed's only approach will be consistent, radical and the opposite to Cameron.

Go on Ed - it's a winner.

This is a wolf in sheep's clothing if ever I saw one. The day 'Call Me Dave' actually takes any action againstbig business I will show my bare arse in Woolworths.

Its really clear they are trying to steal the albeit faint thunder of the Labour Party. I am unimpressed by Milliband, we need Labour leaders like Wedgie Benn.

The tories are making as much capital as they can while Labour have this leader.

Superficially, for the public , yes. In reality, no. Tories believe in unhindered wealth acquisition. It's a genetic flaw.

Workers are already on remuneration committees. I think they are called shareholders or something like that.

Any sufficiently large number of shareholders can put down a motion to reduce pay, or express no confidence in the directors, at a company's agm and if supported by the majority have it passed.

Instead we'll have a few good men and true to recommend salaries - don't you think they might be open to a few backhanders - the human factor?

Well, if the Cons are going to do something that Labour wants to happen, then surely they should be happy simply with that?

Or is it really all about power?

Cameron was lying, his interview with Marr this morning was a complete disgrace and in my opinion a new low for the Bullingdon Broadcasting Corporation.

Transparency only makes idiots aware the rest of us have known what has been going on ever since Thatcher started the rot.

It's really all about power.

And everyone will talk about creating opportunity, dealing with pay completely out of balance with performance, etc etc, but it's the people who get the fat cat pay who are the people our politicians socialise with. You don't find them down the pub chatting to 'the poors'.

I predict cosmetic changes, no effect, and for the whole thing to be quietly dropped in favour of villifying disabled people, who are 'getting fat off our taxes' or some sort of foreigners who urgently need bombing as a matter of self defence.

Judge politicians on their actions, not on their rhetoric.

So the government no longer feels it's its place to tell city how to distribute the trillion pounds it gave them. It's now up to the share holders.

Nice deflection! It's the big bad shareholders fault.

Cameron is all about presentation and fluff. He can't deny that too many at executive level are a bunch of freeloaders trousering huge sums for no good reason because it's so damn obvious. So he says he'll do something about it but I'd be inclined to keep a very close eye on him and his sleazy cronies. The man's a slippery snake and I really can't believe he's planning to upset his paymasters.

Nothing substantial will come of this and Ed really has an open goal gaping now. Has he and his team got the skill to score that winning goal?

this agenda, including greater transparency on executive earnings and more shareholder power, originated in an independent left-centre campaign

You really think so? Just how many days was Cameron in office before e.g. he asked you fellow-columnist Will Hutton to start looking at this stuff? It was less than a fortnight.

The public outrage is real, and Cameron gets it. It is not the private property of the left.

Ed Miliband has had over a year to at least try to set the pace here and, as on most topics, has been conspicuous mostly for his silence and/or his floundering.

The problem is that whilst the case for pay restraint is irrefutable, Cameron's sponsors are never going to allow it. It's worth remembering that in an environment whhich has seen a massive rise in unemployment and scirched-earth policies designed to humiliate an empoverish the very poorest and most vulnerable in society, those who are most able to withstand austerity measures have demanded tax cuts.

The 1% has resolved to continue to enrich itsellf regardless of the consequences for the rest of us. Not only do they believe they can get away with it, but their essentially sadistic instincts revel in the prospects of the social damage they will cause.

Here's a forecast.

"Shareholder" power (i.e. the execs in YOUR pension fund, and YOUR bank) aren't going to rein in the wages of their mates.

If you believe they are, then believe me, you're on the same intellectual level as CallMeDave!

Morality and economy became words that never touched, worlds apart. Well, today they are back together – something even Cameron has been forced to acknowledge. Had he failed to address executive pay it would have been a mistake similar to, but even bigger than, his long relationship with the Murdoch empire.

words, words. words.
can we not admit politicians of all hues no longer run this country. it is global big business that call the shots and all dave or indeed ed can or could do is tinker on the margins and give out press releases.

the people have lost.

Yes like the good little Tory you are you welcome limited transparency because you and your fellow travelers could not survive total transparency as that would infer some form of accountability.

Cameron was lying

Why? Because you and only you have the special telly with the built-in lie detector, hardwired to your tinfoil helmet?

He seemed pretty sincere to me (not that my TV's lie detector is any better, I admit). He can see there's an issue. He's looking to deal with it. Why not at least wait and see what the proposals are?

Capitalism has no morality. It is based on exploitation.

I don't buy it. It puts the onus for fairness into the hands of shareholders: how likely are they to be interested in ensuring fair salaries? It's true that people at the top have seen their salaries increase massively over the last year while thousands of people have sunk further into poverty. But the unfairness is the general disparity - not a few unsuccessful figures receiving pay-offs. If you want to remedy that, raise income taxes to 94% on the top one percent of earners; and resdistribute that money to those on minimum wage. Otherwise, no - it's just passing the buck from government to shareholders.

But maybe it will stimulate public consciousness of the plutocratic reality of wages. That may encourage MPs to do more to secure fairness in the future.

There's lots of ways to help fix the economy.

A start would be to require all goods sold to carry the flag of the country of manufacture.

Ed really has an open goal gaping now.

Has he?

Winning goal? Scoring that goal?

But Ed Miliband is an absolute Dweeb....bet he's never kicked a ball in his life....let alone kisck one into a goal.

Miliband needs to take a leaf from the only Miliband worth a light. That's Ralph Miliband. Nothing less than having workers representatives on the board of the company will suffice.

What you say is correct just keep saying it , I bet you will help others to see the light, the future is not yet decided.

These people are idiots and their stupidity will hopefully be reported as such when we have a free press.

SoundMoney:

He can see there's an issue. He's looking to deal with it. Why not at least wait and see what the proposals are?

To date, they consist of the following:

"The absolute key, and the thing I can confirm today, that does need to happen and will happen is clear transparency in terms of the publication in terms of proper pay numbers so you can really see what people are being paid, and then binding shareholder votes so the owners of the company are asked to vote on the pay levels and – absolutely key – votes on parts about dismissal packages and payments for failure."

Given the monumental failures of his term in office thus far, he needs a pay-cut.
He's also ignoring what the High Pay Commission are really asking for - a cut in top salaries as a whole - not just those who fail. This is the top 0.1% of earners - who have been insulated from the downturn, while everybody else has taken a hit. We now have a gap between wealthy and poor which mirrors that of third-world countries. They also want it to be scrutinised by a cross-section of society - not just share-holders.

So Cameron is ignoring what the High Pay Commission have actually recommended. Unfortunately, the other political parties have followed suit.

for all the rhetoric the city will once again next week announce record bank bonuses for 'success' in 2011.

8 billion pounds i hear.....

plus ca change

Perhaps I can tell the difference and not as tribalistic as many of the posters on here.

The fightback has already started. The really awful leader of the CBI, John Cridland, says that shareholders already have enough power.

Never thought I'd hear a right wing lobbyist arguing against the owners of property being able to do with it as they wish.

Recent reports in Canada state that the cream of the crop business executives in Canada make 189 times the median pay of employees (that figure being $44,000 Canadian dollars).

Until a fundamental redrafting of the Social Contract occurs, Orwell's wisdom remains: some animals are more equal than others. An organization more
powerful than individual governments must be created to do this. Like the EU,
it will be denounced as "fascist," "undemocratic," "Communist," "evil" by the usual Opinion Management machine. Until it exists, however, expect the prevailing caste system.

Cameron will do his best to convince us of something being done, but nothing of substance will.

I never even found it convincing,it was the slimiest interview I have ever witnessed on the BBC.

I'm more interested in politicians pay & 'perks'

a change in the national mood that is more conducive to centre-left values and that a centre-left party ought to be able to catch and speak for

Correct on both fronts, Jackie, but what fatally undermines your piece is your bizarre assumption, derived from God knows where, that Labour is a centre-left party.
It isn't. Ed Miliband isn't centre-left. To give him his (meagre) dues, he's centre, and not as Tory as say, his brother, but there's nothing Left about him, bar his father's outlook, which isn't his.
Since the Blairite entryists seized control of the party's apparatus, Labour has simply been a me-too, neo-liberal, Capital pleasing (in both senses of Capital) market-fixated, party of and for the privileged.

The northern barons are unhappy and want action

Capitalism has no morality.

On the contrary. At best, it is based on the Protestant Work Ethic which states that
it is better to work than not work ("Idle hands are the Devil's work"). At worst, it is
the Star Trek stereotype of the Ferengi: an entire culture founded on the principle
of making profit under any circumstances, and the greater the profit, the greater the piety.

Cameron will huff and puff for a day or so, in order to bolster his poll ratings, but will do absolutely nothing after he's reminded who finances his party, and where his future lies after 2015.

He is a creature of the same people as who he now (feebly) criticises. It's all very well to pass a law that shareholder votes are binding, but utterly meaningless when the shareholders that mean anything are the same people who would never rock the boat.

It's posturing of the worst possible kind, and only the most gullible and stupid posters would fall for it.

Oh, look; they have.

I will show my bare arse in Woolworths.

Horrific tho that thought might be, you might have noticed Woolworths disappeared from the High Street a couple of years ago.
Nice to be up to date.

Ed's old bosses, Tony and Gordon seems to be having a quite a good feed at the fat cat pay trough these days. Although to be fair to Blair, he doesn't feel the need to hang on to an MP's salary.

I'm a recent convert* to limiting executive pay as a multiple of worker pay.**

** By worker, I mean EVERY person who works in the company's supply chain, so that we can't have any "hiving off" of parts of the business, as we do to avoid tax.

Hence, if the limit is 20x and where a Bangladeshi call centre worker starts on a low salary, the company CEO would be on approximately £16,000 p.a.

Seems fair.

*By recent, I mean in the last ten minutes.

when we have a free press.

Indeed. What a totalitarian country we live in.

Look at the media, all clones of one another, like the Guardian, Times, Mirror, Sun, Mail, BBC, Sky [that's enough. Ed]

I know Bill but it just rolls off the tongue easier than say 'Poundstretcher'
and has more impact than 'I'll eat my hat'

What does Labour have to do with it? As far as I can tell this is a Lib Dem policy, and has been since long before the other two parties jumped on the bandwagon. If any party deserves credit for it they do.

If you go back two decades,executive pay and bonuses were controversial then;and they were condemned by the more One-Nation inclined Tory PM John Major.But nothing was done then,and I suspect nothing will be done under the far more City-orientated scion of a stockbroker Minority Dave despite his soundbites this weekend.

He was willing to hand out rewards to such types in last week's honours list,so I've got no reason to think if anything does take place it will be merely cosmetic and not to keen to upset those who mostly finance his party and who influenced the previous New Labour government too much.We need action immediately rather than just talking about what is needed,otherwise it will go away gently into the ether as the political classes are hoping,and if you think Minority Dave wants to clamp down on City excesses,merely observe his solo turn at the EU summit recently and his reluctance to enact initial EU-wide regulatory laws proposed by the French and Germans which may have to be imposed because of his love-in with The City,which may in fact not neccessarily be a bad thing.

You DO realise Bill that Woolworths is still a going concern in many parts of the globe?

Better still. We can send Danden abroad. Might broaden his mind.

But my point stands: it has disappeared from the High Street.

Care to show what trough Brown is feeding from? I can see that he supports a lot of organisations.

So can you forsee me needing a passport?

Danden

8 January 2012 09:26PM
Response to TheGreatRonRafferty, 8 January 2012 09:23PM

So can you forsee me needing a passport?

No, I think you're quite safe. More importantly, I think we all are.

You could of course simply nip up to Speke, Liverpool if the need arises, and do it from their office window!

•£48,166.00 for a speech to Visa International.
•£36,639.66 for a speech to Credit Suisse in Miami, Florida.
•£36,018.18 for a speech to Comtec Med in Geneva, Switzerland.
•£35,873.94 for a speech to World 50, Inc in New York.
•£36,174.63 for a speech to PIMCO in Newport Beach, California.
•£36,174.63 for a speech to Economic Club of Michigan.
•£36,146.29 for a speech to Skybridge Capital in Las Vegas.
•£36,292.84 for a speech to Citi Latin America in New York.
•£36,224.88 for a speech to Pershing LLC in Miami.

when we have a free press.

The Rt Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn was a minister for very many years. Can you recall any of his policy decisions that were actually successful?

oop wrong quote. should be:
we need Labour leaders like Wedgie Benn.

He was one of very few politicians who dared to speak out against the war. After leaving parliament he was president of the 'Stop the War' Coalition. He represented an era of politicians who weren't afraid to speak their minds and didn't rely on spin doctors and sound bites.

A man of principle he also was prepared to say when he had got it wrong, yes he made some mistakes but at least he was trying to lead Britain in the right direction. I am disillusioned with politicians from all the parties these days. They dont make them like Tony Benn anymore.

Yes I agree the situation we find ourselves in is beyond parody as you so eloquently amplify.

You mean you deserve a wedgie.