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As the gap between rich and poor steadily increases, Lord Smith of Clifton asks why 'fat cat' bankers and FTSE 100 CEOs are still able to sustain such obscene greed.
I've asked this and related questions (mainly on excessive executive remuneration packages) at regular intervals since joining the Lords in 1997. Successive ministers in the previous Labour government offered very woolly answers; will coalition ministers prove any less evasive?
The point of my persistence is that, as everyone knows, the gap between rich and poor has been growing steadily wider over the past three decades. It is reaching the critical point where the magnitude of the gap poses a serious threat to social cohesion in the UK.
While it is generally true that the remuneration packages of FTSE 100 board members keeps on increasing by leaps and bounds, year by year – and especially those of CEOs – the wages of the general workforce, by contrast, increases hardly at all. Indeed, many people experience a drop in their living standards as inflation erodes their purchasing power.
The bankers, of course, top the 'fat cat' earnings league; their collective cynical disregard for public opinion is reminiscent of the ruling Burmese junta!
This state of affairs is unacceptable as it jeopardises the very structure of society. I am under no illusions that my parliamentary question will affect their behaviour, but there are some faint signs that the drip of continual criticism from many quarters is beginning to annoy them – and so it should!
Criticism of such obscene greed must be sustained until effective corporate governance is in place to ensure good corporate citizenship. When that happens, talk of the Big Society will be more than just rhetoric.
Trevor Arthur Smith was raised to the peerage as Baron Smith of Clifton, of Mountsandel in the County of Londonderry in 1997. He was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for constitutional affairs 2007-10 and is currently a member of the House of Lords economic affairs select committee.
Article Comments
Sorry Lord Smith, we will all have to accept that things are not going to change. This government is simply going to use the excuse that bankers will move abroad. Well, let them, there can't be jobs for all of them - call their bluff. Anyway, who wants them to stay if they are incapable of preventing the chaos they caused in the first place. And, when they move, don't let them come back. Would you employ someone who has, through their own greed, been responsible for the terrible state we are in now? Keep on trying though!
william pepper
8th Feb 2011 at 10:06 am
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