The British economy needs to have strong, effective CEOs behind its back in order to grow.
That's according to John Cridland, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), who spoke in favour of strong CEOs after the former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood.
"Britain needs successful and growing companies," he claimed. "It needs the best CEOs wanting to come here. It's vital that international companies are based in the UK and if we lose them the country is the poorer."
In addition, Mr Cridland has got behind high-ranking executives who work hard for their paypackets, citing Tony Blair as the last PM "bold enough" to say top performers deserved higher levels of pay, cites The Sun.
He explained: "I would urge all three political parties to recognise that people earning good money are very welcome in the UK. The last person I remember saying that was Tony Blair.
"There is no question that rewards for failure, millions for mediocrity, are wrong. But we seem to have lost focus on the flipside - that it is acceptable to pay for performance," he added.
Mr Cridland even went on to cite the pay received by footballers, claiming that teams need well-paid stars to reach the top of the league, much like businesses.
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