Mike Priestley: North of Watford

At present, though, Britain's mini-boom (such as it was) is fading fast. Manufacturing orders are falling. Jobs galore are being shed. Exports are in sharp decline. Share prices are sliding downhill. We're in a right old mess.

Yet still, it seems, according to the Treasury too many of the country's bosses have been giving themselves fat rises, with the chiefs of the large privatised utilities among the worst of the lot.

These are the very same people who are keen enough to support the Government's appeals for pay restraint when it comes to the claims put in by their workforces. Yet they are either too stupid or too blinded by greed to see that their big rises are one of the chief reasons why those they employ believe they should have more, too.

Why should a shop-floor worker settle for an inflation-linked rise on his or her modest wage when the man at the top is getting ten times that percentage on a salary most of us will only ever be able to dream of?

You don't have to be a red-hot raving socialist to believe that something is wrong with a system which allows that sort of thing to happen - and for it to be justified by the old clich that "you have to pay that sort of money if you want someone of the right quality for the job".

Rubbish! Anyone who was the "right quality for the job" would have more sense than be seen to be stoking up huge personal wealth while keeping the workers down. It's the way to create a thoroughly disgruntled workforce determined to do their best not to co-operate.

No-one would deny that the people at the top of any business, carrying the ultimate responsibility for its success or failure, should be handsomely rewarded.

But if they then add an extra 20, 30 or 40 per cent to that handsome reward at a time of general restraint, they are insulting their workers and brandishing a couple of fingers at the Government.

I hate the idea of legally-enforceable limits on wage rises, but it might be the only way of bringing a sense of restraint into the boardrooms of Britain.

Action that did little to help a cause

Some people are strong on good intentions but somewhat deficient when it comes to common sense. I'm thinking especially about the Animal Liberation Front supporters who freed more than 3,000 mink to terrorise the wildlife, farm animals, pets and children of Ringwood, in Hampshire.

The bonny faces of mink belie their savage nature. They are killers which kill for pleasure as well as to eat. Because of them, otters are now a rarity in Britain. So are water voles, which once paddled their way along every river and canal.

That's not to condone the keeping of mink in small cages until it's time for them to be slaughtered and skinned. I've no time for the fur trade. But this isn't the way to defeat it.

I appreciate that those who care about the plight of these creatures grow impatient at the slow pace of progress to be made with anti-fur propaganda. Public opinion seems to change, but then it swings back a bit.

But overall, far more people now reject fur as a respectable fashion accessory and their numbers are growing.

It's only by curbing demand that the trade will be stopped. It isn't by sending thousands of mink out on the rampage into the countryside. All that does is make a lot of those who care about wildlife lose patience with people who are, basically, on the same side.

OK, so the world is warming up after all. I've been understandably sceptical about it, given the cool spring and summer we've experienced. But the scientific evidence now seems indisputably convincing.

And it's backed by personal experience. The other day I went out walking for about five hours. There was thick cloud cover and it rained for most of the time. Only twice did the sun come anywhere near breaking through, and even then it didn't quite make it. I didn't wear my hat, as I usually do for protection against the sun, because there didn't seem to be any need.

But that evening the top of my bald head was tender and red. I was suffering from sun burn even though there had been no visible sun.

It's a bit worrying, isn't it?

Sir Titus, Salt of the earth

It comes as no surprise to learn that Sir Titus Salt had a few nifty tricks up his sleeve to enable him to publicise his good works - among them donating the final £50 to appeals so that he could grab the limelight, as revealed the other day in the T&A.

You don't get to be rich and famous by being a shrinking violet. Prominent people often display a mixture of altruism and egotism. So long as they keep it in balance, they're OK.

Sir Titus Salt built a splendid riverside village for his workers out in the country, away from the soot and the grime and the narrow, disease-ridden streets they had previously had to endure. He provided them with a chapel, hospital, school, institute, library, park and alms houses. He was indeed a philanthropist and was able to bask in that reputation.

He also, of course, had his workers where he could keep an eye on them, paying much of their wages back to him in the form of rents and money spent in his shops in the village he named after himself. He denied them a pub to drink in, and was able to keep track of who went to church and who didn't.

He was a right old control freak, in fact. But on balance, he certainly did more good than harm, so we'll forgive him his ego trips.

Why Anthea ought to act naturally

It seems to be generally accepted that the reason why Anthea Turner posed for a series of Tatler photographs naked but for a 9ft python was to give herself a change of image.

"Look at me," she wanted to tell the world. "I'm no longer Miss Goody Two Shoes, the girl next door. I'm alluring and raunchy."

Sorry, Anthea. It didn't work. The pose was OK but the face was still that of Miss Goody Two Shoes. You didn't kid me - and I reckon you didn't kid yourself either.

Forget it and just be who you are.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.