Defenders of the astronomical amounts routinely being trousered by leading executives have a stock response to critics who say that such rewards are excessive. Chief executives have to be paid the going rate. Without the right incentives, these alpha males (and occasionally alpha females) would take their talents elsewhere and everyone would lose. It’s a global marketplace out there. The market rate for talent has to be paid. Having a pop at these titans of industry over their remuneration packages is simply the politics of envy.

Interestingly, the same explanation is used to justify the nugatory pay awards executives hand out to their staff. When it comes to people lower down the pay s cale, the message is that jobs can always be outsourced overseas if the workers get too bolshie about pay.

The upshot is that the gap between executives and the rest has exploded. In 1965, the gap between what a US chief executive earned and the average worker’s pay was 20 to one. Data last week showed that ratio is now 312 to one. The bosses running the top 350 companies are not only pulling away from their employees: they are also pulling away from the 0.1% of top earners.

It is a similar story in the UK. Another survey from last week shows the pay of FTSE 100 chief executives rose six times as fast as those of the wider workforce in 2017. In a year when prices rising faster than earnings meant living standards fell for the bulk of the population, those running the biggest quoted companies saw their remuneration going up by 11%.

The rationale for paying executives more is that it results in higher growth, better investment decisions, enhanced productivity and a trickle-down effect that cascades through the economy.

In fact, the opposite has happened. In the 1960s, US growth was higher, investment was higher and productivity was higher. A more even division of the spoils meant people could pay their way without getting excessively into debt.

In Britain, wages adjusted for inflation are lower than they were before the financial crisis of 2008. Productivity has flatlined because those running companies would rather use profits to buy back shares – often boosting their own remuneration at the same time – than on investment in new plant and machinery.

The notion that soaring executive pay is vital for the wellbeing of the economy is self-serving tosh. The sense that chief executives are taking the mickey is perhaps best exemplified by the case of Countrywide, Britain’s biggest estate agency group. This is a company that has made four profit warnings since the start of the year and which is now trying to raise £140m in emergency funding. Along with the rescue package, the board wants shareholders to agree to a new remuneration scheme that could hand its three top executives £20m of shares between them.

This is precisely the sort of conduct that ought to lead to a shareholder revolt. Interestingly, Peter Long, the chairman of Countrywide – who is in line for £6m from this scheme if targets are hit – is also the chairman of Royal Mail, where a particularly egregious executive pay scheme last month resulted in a 70% shareholder revolt.

The political climate has changed as a result of the financial crisis. Before the crash, workers might have grumbled about the pay packages their bosses were getting, but didn’t complain that much because their own pay was also going up.

But since 2008, a combination of austerity and pay freezes have created a new political dynamic. If a future Labour government took action to clamp down on executive pay, the move would be wildly popular.

Dismissing this reaction as the politics of envy is completely beside the point. In the current circumstances, the politics of envy are both justified and easily understandable. People have had enough.

Instagram’s influencers need guiding hand from their backers

It’s heartening to know that folks at the Competition and Markets Authority are keeping fingers on the pulse by browsing Z-list celebrities’ Instagram profiles.

The competition watchdog has written to some social media “influencers” as part of a probe into whether they have breached consumer laws by promoting products without disclosing fees for doing so.

These investigations usually involve an interview, with those suspected of transgression asked to adjust their behaviour or face fines.

There must be mileage in a reality TV show with Love Island stars being interrogated on the finer points of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

If you could travel back in time and walk into the boardroom of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, one of the CMA’s predecessors, it would be almost impossible to explain what the future of regulation would hold.

Such investigations are the bizarre product of a world in which technological developments speed ahead of regulatory ones. From tax treatment of online multinationals to the regulation of industry disruptors such as Uber and AirBnB, tensions regularly emerge between long-held principles and the realities of the modern world.

In the case of Instagram’s influencers, however, the existing laws should be perfectly adequate.

Those who use the media, social or otherwise, must be clear about any commercial interest behind their promotion of a product. The problem is less about regulation than with the blurring of lines between the person and their brand.

Anyone enjoying their 15 minutes of fame is unlikely to consider the ramifications when big brands call with lucrative promotional deals. Perhaps the finger should be pointing at businesses willing to harness the power of Insta-celebs but not to help them navigate consumer law.

A third rise in household bills shows we need to switch to clean energy

Hundreds of thousands of energy bill payers have been told they could be hit with yet another price rise this year, as if two already weren’t bad enough.

So far just Bulb, the UK’s fastest-growing energy supplier, has warned of the risk of a third rise, but many others will be considering similar action. Wholesale electricity and gas prices have marched upwards. Culprits include higher oil prices, Europe’s heatwave ramping up electricity use, and some power output falling, plus the need to replace depleted gas reserves after a cold winter.

Ministers say the subsequent tariff increases by energy suppliers are “completely unacceptable” and justify the government’s imminent price cap. They urge people to switch.

What they don’t mention is most people are virtually guaranteed to see their energy bills climb even higher, despite the cap and regardless of whether they switch. As Ed Miliband has noted repeatedly, a price cap is not the same as his price freeze. The cap is reviewed twice a year by Ofgem and, if costs facing suppliers are up, up goes the cap. The regulator did exactly that recently with its specialist “safeguard” tariff.

In the short term, wholesale costs look to be heading in one direction. The US imposition of sanctions against countries that import Iranian crude from November could drive up oil, and therefore gas, prices.

The reality is that no single government, let alone an individual, has control over wholesale prices. Consumers with the money can protect themselves from rising energy bills with energy efficiency measures, solar panels and, increasingly, home batteries. Nationally, the only long-term solution is to speed up the switch from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy.

That transition won’t come cheap. But as the rising wholesale prices and energy bills remind us, neither does the alternative.