Inequality is rife, already.

So silly season is over and as the trimmings and lights come down, many people come crashing down with them. The weather is gloomy, miserable and along with the freezing cold, for many reality bites in January.  

Some will have over spent, trying to give some happiness to their families and loved ones, after what has been another difficult year. Some will be paying for it until next Christmas.

For other less fortunate soles, Christmas is a sad and lonely time; a time for memories of missed ones, deceased parents or ex partners and absent children. There are many different reasons for many different people to feel desperately helpless and lost as the New Year begins. For others, the new-year signifies new beginnings, a fresh start, and new hope. Some will have made New Year’s resolutions to get fit, others to get a better job, some simply to find happiness.

Wednesday the 8^th of January this year was dubbed fat cat Wednesday. This was not a reference to the thousands joining gyms to shed the excess pounds they have gained over the festive period; this is a reference to the Chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies.

The High pay centre released a report that suggested the remuneration of many of those executives, after just two days back in the office was equal to that of the average worker. It found that in 2012, the average pay for a Chief Executive of a FTSE 100 company was almost £4.3 million (the equivalent of over £1000 per hour). The study went on to say that over the past decade, executive pay has increased by 74% while workers take home an average of £26,000 per year.

Francis O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said that fat cat bosses taking home more in a few days than most workers earn in a year is damaging the economy. She added “workers need better pay rises so that the recovery is built on growing incomes, rather than falling savings and mounting household debts; but Britain’s fat cat bosses are hoarding earnings owed to staff or shareholders and themselves.”

The trade unions and Labour have for some time, been calling for a living wage rather than a minimum wage.

In October last year, minimum wage increased by just 1.9% to £6.31 an hour for workers over 21. For 18 year olds, who are often expected to the same role and shifts as their older counter parts is a measly £5.03 per hour.

Were it not for the higher rates of pay in the south, predominantly London wages, the average of £26000 would be much less. A person working in a call centre in Yorkshire will earn on average £18,579 while in London they could expect to earn £25,000, in Manchester £20,536.

The appalling inequality in our country doesn’t end there. Women are still paid considerably less than men. The Fawcett society recently reported that women earn on average 14.9% less than men, which they say, equates to a whopping £423,000 throughout a career. They warned that the gap is in danger of widening as government policy drives workers from the public sector into private sector jobs, where the gap is already wider.

Despite the massive inequalities that exist in our society, Tory PM David Cameron and his Eton colleague, Osborne are resisting the calls for a living wage. They are still keen to punish the poor (who are less likely to vote) further while ring fencing the benefits paid to OAP’s, who coincidentally are more likely to vote, and even more likely to vote Conservative.

Not only are they determined to look after their core voters and the very richest they are still hell bent on destroying trade unions and weakening the support they can offer to low paid workers. They have failed to close the loop holes that allow big business to simply not bother paying taxes, while driving the ill, weak and vulnerable into jobs and imposing crippling bedroom tax and council tax bills on them.

I was fortunate recently to have the opportunity to attend a directors meeting of a leading financial services provider. I suggested that closing the gap between those at the top of the company and those at the bottom would be a good way of raising morale in the workplace and reduce natural attrition of staff, as well as improving the public perception of the finance industry. The silence in the room when I made the suggestion was deafening.