Realistic rewards for top execs?

Mark Thompson and assistant

The general mood of the nation continues to change, and question many of the conventional beliefs that arose over the past 15 years as the government somehow managed to change the way common sense was replaced by process and procedures. For some reasons that no one seems to be able to rationalise, this period saw barely talented types like Mark Thompson get the gig as DG of the BBC on a near as dammit £1m salary.

The idea seemed to be that if your organisation has a vast budget, then your salary should also be vast. Should the BBC boss be paid roughly 5x what the PM gets? Of course not, it's pure bonkers.  But the culture of overpaying is self-propelling - but those "remuneration committees" that amount to mini cartels of fat cats that kid themselves they are worth it, are going to find the cream has turned sour at last.

Shareholders are revolting at last, and bosses of companies that take the piss from their shareholders by getting paid huge salaries when the company value goes down, are not likely to be left alone for much longer.

Sir Michael Darrington 

Some old fashioned private investors (ie persons who themselves not being paid dubious silly money to run an investment fund, and are thus part of this rude rewards culture) who have have had enough are starting to organise, and they might as well simply vote down every salary of over £500k without further thought, and get those who feel they can justify themselves to perform a song and dance for the benefit of the shareholders at the AGM.

Sir Michael Darrington is the epitome of an old-style company leader who earned his keep the progressive but hard way over 25 years - he was not parachuted in on a fat salary by a VC to strip and flip. He has plenty of awkward questions to ask, but the opening line of questioning to adopt is really, really simple. Make these cats meow for their supper: "Please explain to us all why and how this job is twice as import as that of the Prime Minister..."


The notion that by not paying "the market rate" an organisation would be unable to attract the right candidates is risible. Maybe if London bankers had been paid 10% of what they got in the past 15 years, the rest of us might not now be paying off the national debt for the next thousand years, thanks to Labour's panic bale-outs of 2007.