Until recently, a good motto for the well-paid British chief executive would have been “united we stand, divided we rise”. Businesses often act together to fight measures that may dent corporate profits, as a group of trade associations did this week in pushing back against government attempts to raise its national living wage for those at the bottom of the pay scale.

On their own pay, though, chief executives work separately, tackling each challenge at company level.

The High Pay Centre lobby group’s annual survey of FTSE 100 bosses’ pay — issued, by cruel coincidence, the same day as the living wage letter — underlines the effectiveness of such tactics. Heads of big UK companies have seen their average pay rise by a third since 2010 and were paid more than 140 times employees’ average wages in 2015.