Step forward Jean-Pierre Garnier and take a bow. In a week when most attention was focused on low-paid workers - firefighters - the greed of the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline has ensured an urgently needed focus on top pay. It is typical of the secrecy with which corporate Britain conducts its business that we have not had such a row since "Cedric the pig" in 1995 - the year that pent-up wrath over boardroom pay rises exploded over Cedric Brown's 74% pay rise at British Gas. Mr Garnier makes Mr Brown look like an ascetic medieval monk who has taken poverty vows.

Mr Garnier is the third most highly paid executive in the UK. His precise pay is obscured by shrouds of highly technical bonuses and share options. But his current package, worth an estimated £7m, made him the third highest-paid FTSE-100 company boss in the recent Guardian/Inbucon executive pay survey. GSK's chairman is concerned at the meagreness of this remuneration. He has been writing to GSK's shareholders about the need for "a higher quantum of long-term incentive grants". Just how big an incentive is also difficult to calculate, but the latest estimate of the Guardian's City staff is a staggering threefold increase to £21m this year. The major shareholders are reported to be unhappy. They have every reason to be.

Mr Garnier has presided over the disastrous merger of two giant British multinational drug companies: Glaxo Welcome and SmithKline Beecham. The share price has fallen by 40%, profits by 25%, and more serious still, the pipeline of new products is so poor that the company has shelved its regular update to investors on research and development. The jungle drums in the City should be sounding. Even if the merger had been a supreme success, the threefold pay increase would have been obscene; following failure, makes it degenerate.

This importation of American pay has to stop. GSK says it is needed to compete in the US, but, ironically, it is being applied here just as the American model is under reconstruction. There is far too little debate about top pay here. The Tories have not cared about excessive rises; Labour has been too scared to tackle them. Shareholders are being given a vote this year on remuneration; but the votes remain only advisory. An excessive Pru pay deal was blocked; but reversing Britain's growing inequality requires much more than an ad hoc victory.