£100,000-a-year union baron Brendan Barber’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Earlier this week the TUC fat cat lectured us on Britain’s “stratospheric inequality”, and it seems he would know. According to reports Barber will pocket a six-figure golden goodbye when he quits his post later this year. That’s not all – he will then go on to receive £62,000 a year as part of a generous gold-plated pension scheme. Using average life expectations the 61-year-old Barber is likely to live for another 25 years, that leaves him with an overall pension pot totalling equivalent to some £1,550,000.

All this despite the fact that union membership has actually fallen by some 143,000 in the last year. Hardly performance-related pay…