THERE'S one sure way to stop whingeing Joe Public complaining about the pay rises for fat cat bosses - don't tell him about them!

Simple, isn't it?

The sort of fiendish solution television's New Statesman Alan B'stard could have thought up.

But taking the credit for today's wheeze is the Department of Trade and Industry, which hopes to change company law to hide the pay, share options and perks of top executives.

Under new proposals, only the total pay of the company's highest paid director would have to revealed, and the disclosure threshold would be raised to £100,000.

Which would doubtless make life a whole lot easier for people like British Gas boss Cedric Brown, whose salary rocketed from £270,000 to £475,000 a year.

We call on decent-minded MPs of every political persuasion to support Labour's Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown who is opposing this ridiculous suggestion.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.