THEY call them the Fat Cats. But, personally, I think they should be called the Fat Ewes. Because, these days, they spend most of their time bleating.

A couple of years ago, the Fat Cats were personified as the directors of privatised industries who, having invented nowt, invested nowt and risked nowt, began to rip off the public by paying themselves huge bonuses for services which had gone into steep decline.

That, of course, is what you expect of businessmen: they're in it for the brass. Now, it is the turn of the so-called "professional classes". And they can bleat just as long and, if anything, even louder.

The teachers, of course, have been moaning for years because someone in Government suggested it was time they taught youngsters to read and write. What affrontery!

Now the big guns of the professional world, the lawyers and the doctors, are under attack. Top barristers have been found to making up to half a million a year for representing clients on legal aid - and often lose those cases anyway.

Surgeons and their hospitals may also be made subject to league tables, like the schools, and they are livid. How dare they? ask the medics. Even though, in I hope rare cases, bad surgery can actually kill people!

Few people realise that QCs are paid by the day for their court time. So what is there to stop the odd bad apple stretching out a two day case into a five day case when it means an extra three days, at rates as high as £1,000 a day, in the bank?

Even fewer people know that top consultants, even those in the NHS, in effect set their own pay. Sure, they get a basic rate for the job, plus their fees from private patients of course, but they also have local committees which recommend bonus payments for each other.

Right, says Dr Jack to Dr Jill, you recommend me for an extra fifty thou this time and I'll do the same for you next time round.

It is reported that there are consultants making £250,000 a year and more and the good ones may, just, be worth that. But what about the bad ones?

We, the tax-paying public, are never told who is good and bad. The doctors cannot tell us because of "professional ethics". In other jobs, this would be termed a self-protection racket.

In Beggarsdale, we are truly lucky. The Doc, our GP, runs a practice the size of a small county on his own, works day and night, year in, year out.I don't know what he earns but, judging by his thread-bare tweed jacket, it is not a lot.

The Doc, and his overworked friend, the Vicar, toil tirelessly in the interests of their respective flocks and you never hear a bleat pass their lips. If there were any justice in this world, they would be showered with gold, not brass. And canonised into the bargain. Won't happen, of course. He who bleats, wins. Both the Doc and the Vicar are getting on a tad. Both have been heard to whisper about retirement. When they go, they can never be replaced be people of equal calibre. Unless, of course, the Price is Right. But who will foot the bill?

l The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.

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