Skipper

Further to my last post, I read Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian and find more grist being offered to the mill. I have to say she sometimes appears to me to typify the nannyish political correctness of this much satirised organ at its worst and at other times she tries too hard to praise a government which, it seems, she desperately wants to support. But she is very good on the rich-poor relationship and once wrote a brilliant book based on working as a cleaner on the minimum wage. Today she addresses the subject of the massive salaries of BBC stars and how a great deal of acrimony and jealousy would be pre-empted if everyone could examine everyone else's tax returns on the web as in Norway and Finland. Yeah, as if...

She also points out that in 1979 chief executives paid themselves 10 times more than their workers; now the multiplier is 54. What's more these huge increases have come without any concomitant increase in productivity. It's merely 'a mutually agreed cartel, all racing to prove they are top dog for no extra productivity or risk.' Despite the facile arguments deployed by executives about competing in a high wage environment, only 4 per cent of the workforce earn over £52,000 a year while two thirds earn less than the average £28,000.

She also finds that, despite recent increasses and more favourable pensions, public sector workers still get less than their equivalents in the private sector. She finishes off by demolishing the idea that performance related pay actually improves performance in any way. It seems this comes most easily when employees feel they are respected and working as valued members of a team in which their voice is heard. Polly has nothing to say in her piece about Cherie Blair charging the party astronomic fees for her hair dos during Labour's election campaign. Charging, I suppose, was justified, but all that money, just to do her not especially attractive hair, does rather nail down the impression of a lady with very non socialist lifestyle tastes .