This Labour government can curb excessive pay

Yes Alex. The conjojning of the words 'tar' and 'brush' seem appposite, no doubt such as the words 'Hannan' and 'National Health Service' are applied to the Tories by so many here.

The thing is Guy, if both you and the cleaner decided not to turn up one day the cleaner's absense would be noiticed a long time before yours.

I see that one of the 100 "leading progressive figures" against high pay and greed was Margaret Moran MP. Have you calculated how many years it would take for a cleaner to earn the £22,500 of taxpayers' money treating dry rot at her and her partner's seaside house about 100 miles from her Luton South constituency?

Socialist troughers voting against high pay? Be still my aching sides.

"Oh, and I suppose Sir Lord Alan Sugar is exempt too."

And a certain Tony Bliar

You have to question the political direction of Compass. It's Chair, Neil Lawson was once employed by Rupert Murdoch as a payed lobbyist for News International. Lawson is a product of the New Labour (old tory) machine. As we have seen, capitalism in its current form has had its day. Yet this man aligned himself with capitalist businessmen like murdoch.

One of the most ridiculous proposals I've heard from Compass, and that's saying something.

If Compass had it's way and adopted these proposals, it would pretty much kill off Labour for good.

"Squeezing the rich until the pips squeak" is not only politically bankrupt, but it is economically and socially wrong.

There's nothing wrong with being rich, nor wanting to be rich. What is wrong is the level of poverty left in Britain. That should be our focus, not engaging in attacks on the rich because of envy.

If he secured the 'core' vote he'll have lost all who aspire to do better for their families i.e. Worcester man, medical team, and the unemployed won't bother either (3 million of them).

Landslide defeat looms ever nearer.

I fully agree that the corporate attitude to long-term risk in chasing short-term bonuses that brought down the banks needs to be regulated - it's a clear threat to our society's well-being.

But I don't see the logical leap you make from "a few hundred masters of the universe" to FTSE 100 CEO's, who in my obsevation haven't brought down the banks - indeed, the efforts of those CEO's over the last 12 years have greatly contributed to this country in terms of jobs, trade and taxes paid.

I'm also not convinced by "excessive pay". How do you define it? Excessive measured against the national income averages in the UK, or excessive measured against international comparisons? We need to be careful here: as an example, a consultant surgeon earns over £100K a year, with very portable skills. Do you want to chase them away to another country? I can't remember the exact figures, but something like the highest 10% of earners in this country between them contribute about 40% of all income tax. It wouldn't be smart to lose that source of revenue.

Bonuses are a different matter. Why can't they be taxed at different rates? It should not be too difficult to require companies to differentiate between contractually based salary / overtime, and discretionary bonuses paid annually. Many bankers in the City have (relatively) low salaries, but make most of their money through bonuses.

I didn't say it was a Labour proposal.

My point was that the 'proposal' is an epic fail, and I quoted Tom Harris' interesting analysis to show that this appears to be the view across the board.

Not one commentator on this blog, from either Party, appears to agree with it either.

Sorry if I upset you somehow.

Wonder who is going to tell "Lord" Sugar?

I wonder why these people always use CEO's as examples of the villain. This is despite the fact these people are creating hundreds or thousands of jobs.

Its never premiership footballs earning far more than average CEO's, its never film stars or TV 'personalities'. I can only guess that because Socialists enjoy films, TV and football so are happy with their hypocrisy.

Oh, and I suppose Sir Lord Alan Sugar is exempt too.

I believe one of the richest women in the world made a large donation of £1 Million to the Labour Party after they "arranged" to drop a VAT charge of £10 Million against her employer.

Clues: J K Rowling, Warner Brothers, Harry Potter, VAT.

There's a fixed amount of money banks have. If you ask them to repay all government investment now then accept that mortgage and small business loans really will go over the edge of the cliff they've been standing next to for the last year.

Also the problem is that the banks interlend, so killing off one or two banks would likely kill off a few more (or at least cripple them) who didn't seem to have any problems.

Further what do you think these "bad debts" were? Certainly the banks are to blame for irresponsible lending, but aren't individuals also to blame for irresponsible borrowing? Why protect stupid borrowers and not the lenders, unless they are your core vote of course?

So in the course the post you go from complaining about high pay for "a few hundred "masters of the universe"" to "FTSE 100 CEO". Where in reality does your zeal end? Are you to go to all board members? Maybe onto freelance IT workers and consultants? Even to reach as far as Department Heads?

That's the problem with all NuLabour's Laws, they never think of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Anti Terror Laws that end up being used to snoop on dog foulers being one of the more surreal.

If you get a "High Pay" piece of legislation in, it would be a short space of time before it was being used for far more than was initially intended. The dead hand of socialist interference would stretch ever further and a lot of the most highly skilled in the country would leave.

When freelancing I earn about 10 times as much as a cleaner at the companies I work with. That's because the market rate values my contribution to those companies at 10 times the value of someone using a broom and duster.

I have turned down jobs overseas in the last couple of years but if ever the time came that some socialist told me I was to be forced to accept a wage closer to that of said cleaner I'd work abroad and take skill, experience and capital with me. Of the last group of consultants I managed, approximately 50% were from overseas. Bring in legislative nonsense like this and that 50% plus a few UK staff would be off before you got a single penny reduction.

Global economy, global workforce, so no room for socialist stupidity if you want to compete. 12 years in and still a lot of socialists don't get private business and private sector employees.

Even though it's a proposal from Compass, and not Labour? And even though Labour are not going to adopt it?

So...the consensus of the comments so far is...epic fail.

Interesting blog from Tom Harris MP on the subject too: http://bit.ly/SV0Ge

His conclusion?

"This proposal has “securing our core vote” written all over it...

...

"And when any party starts producing policy “to secure the core vote”, it might as well write of the next election, go quietly into opposition right now and start thinking about the election after next."

Well one way to make it work would be to say to Banks that now owe us money pay it back, the next if you run into difficulties again get out of them alone do not come to the tax payers.

But lets be honest some of these banks are so bad they should have been allowed to go to the wall, we could easily protect peoples accounts, but now Labour are looking to take more bad debt from these same banks, well the answer is tell the banks to pay off your bad debt your self.

This sounds like a bit of New Labour headline hugging. How much would it save, where would the savings go and would it help the lot of the underprivileged in this country. New Labour have lost the plot. Everything is done for headlines and they do nothing at all for the workers of this country.

Nex time we announce an initiative try to think about its consequences and if it delivers no obvious benefit, then move on.

No wonder the Tories are ahead; so long as New Labour is allowed to spin the agenda and to keep its selected PM the more likely we are to find ourselves powerless to influence events over the next couple of decades.

I'm all for redistribution of wealth but it has to be done with purpose and not just for the press

I can't but help laughing at how ridiculous this idea is.

So we've gone from Peter Mandelson who claimed to be "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" under Labour to this clap trap.

Ignoring the fact that the idea is totally mad, how are you ever going to make it work?!! You can't even make a minimum wage work, which organisationally is simple, compared to curbing high pay.

Out of interest - what does Alan Sugar have to say about this?

I do hope you manage to persuade Gordon Brown to back this as a policy, because I thought he'd run out of idiotic things to do and say. This would make a wonderful centre piece for his next fight back.

Joe you're a numpty.
100 leading progressive figures might just as well decide that the moon is made of cheese as the idea of curbing top salaries being enacted by this tired shabby government.
Start with expense fiddling, MPs on three times the national wage and not satisfied with that, and salary comparators that automatically generate substantial pay differentials for civil servants and others who would otherwise be 'tempted' by higher salaries elsewhere.
Let me tell you Joe that these people should be told to f off if they believe they are worth more. They'll soon find that they're worth no more than a bucket of warm spit.
When you're on £100K a year as a progressive figure it's damn easy to spout off and talk existentialist claptrap.

I don't know what counts as 'excessive', but labour are certainly attacking high pay - by driving companies abroad to avoid our 'excessive' taxes. Taxes that will become more excessive as we move towards paying off the massive debts that brown and labour have lumbered us with (for no apparent reason).

If it is possible to have too much wealth - the place to start is those who are *already* wealthy and not being productive - attacking those who are actively being productive is just plain mental. All tax is immoral, but income tax in particular is well towards the bad end of the scale.

Who decides? Do you confiscate from authors, racing drivers, musicians, actors? Polly Toynbee? Sting? Anthony Blair? Former Labour Ministers who instantly joined the boards of PFI companies?
Can left-of-centre groups no longer write anything other than suicide notes?

Joe,

Then this Labour government has failed its acid test. The poverty gap has widened since 1997. Plus - the dear leader imposed the 10p tax, which hit the poorest hardest and then he failed to properly recompense them.

Also - I'm afraid to tell you that the Minimum Wage is just tinsel and has no benefit, other than to make already well off socialists feel warm and fuzzy at night.

Dodgy bosses pay cash in hand - and people who are desperate for money will accept jobs that pay below the minimum wage in order to feed themselves:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7824291.stm

Honest bosses who don't want to pay as high as the minimum wage, just off-shore jobs.

Finally other 'honest' bosses use the minimum wage to suppress lower paid workers salaries. It is easy for a boss to sit there grinning that they are complying with the minimum wage, when they are actually glad that it helps them justify paying a lower wage than they might otherwise be negotiated towards.

The Minimum Wage is classic Labour inteterference and a classic case of the failure of socialist policies.

If Labour ever understood the balance between small government, economic success and social equality, then you might achieve something. Until then we are just wasting our words pointing it out, time and time and time and time again............. and the poverty gap will continue to grow until Labour are removed.

The acid test of any Labour government is whether it leaves society more equal than when it came to govern it.

So by your own "acid test" this Labour government has failed. I'd agree with that.

I don't like the minimum wage. Where I live it dragged wages down. Sixteen years ago I served tables in a restaurant for £5.60/hr. The same restaurant now pays minimum wage. I know of migrants employed in preference to local workers because they are willing to work for less than minimum because they send their money home.

If we are going to tackle inequality, we have to address the top as well as the bottom.

Why? Jealousy? Can't help the poor so shackle the rich? Want to prevent businesses coming to the UK and send entrepreneurs elsewhere?

Splendid nonsense! There is nothing this government can do about "excessive pay" because it is out of time. Also, leglislation would be extremely hard (if not impossible) to draft.

The government (not that they govern much anymore) take credit for the improved performances of RBS and Lloyds TSB (the latter suffering from the merger with HBOS for which our wonderful Prime Minister took particular credit!). Both banks suffered massive losses last quarter on their basic banking business (ie bad debts) but both banks enjoyed very large profits from their other activities which servedd to reduce their overall losses. Those profits were made by high-paid individuals in the City who got - SHOCK HORROR - bonuses for making their employers huge profits. There are plenty of other financial centres apart from London. Even now the City generates vast amounts of tax revenue for the government. Only a bunch of lunatics would seek to chase it offshore. Step forward Compass!

If anything showed that it was time for Labour to spend some time in opposition, it was this proposal.

I like the MW, I work for it after all but lets remember it was over a decade ago, Labour have done precious little since.