Happy days are here again, for some. According to Incomes Data Services, the research group, bonuses for board directors at the largest UK companies rose by an average of 22.5 per cent in the past six months, from an average figure of ￡456,000 to ￡559,000. Basic salaries are up 7 per cent on last year. “After a period of relative austerity, the good times have returned to UK boardrooms,” said Steve Tatton, editor of IDS's Executive Compensation Review.

Nothing seems likely to stop the upward pay spiral for top executives: not reasoned argument, name-calling, tax and/or regulatory change. And as for the power of a critical press to influence behaviour: it seems, shall we say, somewhat diminished.

The facts of the matter remain startling. Where once, not so long ago, the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company would have been paid only 20 or 30 times what the average employee was getting, today the chief executive package is on average several hundred times larger. Are today's bosses so much more able than their predecessors? Have their jobs got so much harder? No, and no.