Since when does everyone get a say on what people earn in the private sector?

impolite to ask, we accepted that certain individuals received more because they had qualities that others lacked, even if their CVs appeared similar. Yes there could be problems, caused, for example, by discriminatory managers. But broadly it was a triumph, a giant melting pot that spewed out pay packets reflecting the state of the market, the ability of the worker, and what they contributed.

That’s all being dumped, replaced by government wage-setting on a terrifying scale, fuelled by a perverse belief that there is a correct salary for each and every job independent from the basic economics.

The minimum wage, now determined arbitrarily by politicians rather than the expert Low Pay Commission, is being ratcheted ever upwards – in defiance of the ability of companies to pay. Firms have to put up the salaries of those on slightly more in turn, to maintain the differential with those they perhaps manage. Executive pay is in the cross hairs, too, with successful business leaders demonised by ignorant MPs as fat cats. Salary transparency at the BBC looks set to result in a higher overall wage bill for licence fee payers, and the drums are beating even among apparently intelligent people for Britain to adopt a Norway-style system of publishing everyone’s tax returns online – sure to pour oil on the fire of the noxious politics of envy.

Much of this is justified on the basis that the public has fallen out of love with business, or that there has been some nebulous market failure. But it is a betrayal too far. Once you concede that one person’s ill-informed opinion about someone else’s salary should be reflected in policy, you have given in to the mob.