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I find myself tucked up with very strange bedfellows these days. (Not the first time I’ve had strange bedfellows, of course, but that’s a story for another day).

Just look at the good people snuggled under my capacious duvet this week: Andreas Whittam Smith thinks there might be a revolution; grass roots members of the Church of England are dismayed at the decision to slam the doors of St Paul’s in the faces of the people; shareholders are protesting in growing numbers at excessive pay awards; little Nicholas Sarkozy told that ass Cameron to “shut up”; and perhaps most shocking of all, Brother Numbers muttered something about maybe it being a bad decision to have privatised public services. That may have been the drink, though.

Whittam Smith wrote about the growing anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-greed protests sweeping the world’s capitals, from Wall Street to St Paul’s. He asked: is the revolution finally dawning? “… In the industrialised West the average income of the richest 10 per cent of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10 per cent. That is an enormous difference. And if the comparison is made between, say, the pay of the directors of large companies compared with that of their staff, the gap is astonishing. In many cases, directors earn 200 times more than their lower-paid workers. At some point, this excessive difference is going to cause trouble. Has that moment come?

“If so, it would need specific events to trigger an explosion. Perhaps the never-ending recession, increasing unemployment, the extreme difficulty young people face in obtaining jobs, the squeeze on incomes as inflation rises, and higher rents that punish people who have not been able to buy a house are sufficient for this purpose. Yet the protesters camping outside St Paul’s Cathedral emphasize inequality above all. Their website points to: ‘the social and economic inequality in the UK…the unfair and unequal economic system that favours the rich and powerful’. The parallel Occupy Wall Street in New York puts it another way: ‘The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99 per cent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 per cent.’

“Thus the protesters have well and truly seized the main point: the intolerable gap that has developed between rich and poor.”

Strong words indeed.

Perhaps shareholders are grasping the point. The Independent reported:

“Shareholder revolts over pay have hit record levels this year as investors, stung by criticism of their inertia before the financial crisis, seek to rein in excessive rewards at Britain’s top companies.

“With more than two months left of 2011, 15 companies in the FTSE 100 have suffered investor votes of 20 per cent or more opposing remuneration reports or deliberately abstaining.

“The latest to face shareholder ire over pay was Diageo. The drinks giant was hit by a rebellion from 20 per cent of shareholders at last week’s annual general meeting. Other companies in the list of revolts, compiled by corporate governance consultant Pirc, include HSBC, BP, Standard Life and National Grid.

“Only seven of Britain’s top 100 companies suffered equivalent rebellions in all of 2010. The previous top year for investor unrest was 2009 when shareholders registered protests against 10 companies. The biggest revolt so far this year was at WPP, the marketing giant, whose 42 per cent rebellion was entirely made up of votes against with no abstentions. XStrata was the next biggest with 39 per cent of votes withholding support. The mining company’s remuneration report has attracted protest votes in each of the last three years.”

We can imagine how much notice directors and board members will take of such protest. But they won’t be able to ignore for ever the revulsion of not only the public but also their own shareholders.

Energy utilities, for example, are driving for profit margins above 9%, on average, and that, in a global economic crisis, is disgusting.

John Major’s old maids bicycling to evensong, in his famous misunderstanding of Orwell, are joining the revolution too, it seems: The Church of England is facing a grass-roots revolt from within its own ranks over the controversial closure of St Paul’s because of the anti-capitalist protesters camped outside.

The Reverend Dennis Nadin, a retired vicar, used a rearranged Sunday morning service at St Paul’s Cathedral to pledge solidarity with the protesters camped outside.

He said he would write to the dean of the cathedral demanding an explanation about the “health and safety reasons” used as an excuse for its closure on Friday – the first time such an action has been taken since the Blitz.

And he said the protesters’ message was “absolutely what God would be saying”.

“God provided abundant resources for everyone in the world, but they have been unfairly distributed in a way that means people are starving,” he said.

Thus the good vicar sums up a week of growing ferment.

There’s little chance of a revolution with a capital ‘R’: certainly not in this country.

But there is a growing awareness, day by day, as protest grows around the world and the unlikeliest of people admit to being repulsed at the way we organize our affairs, that change will come. People may not want a Revolution, but in ever growing numbers they want decency, dignity, co-operation – anything other than the every-man-for-himself survival-of-the-fittest jungle we have created to despoil our world and leave people starving in the gutters.

Helping themselves

By the way, Brother Numbers made the comment noted above in light of Cameron’s lunatic plans to force elements of private sector competition into the NHS, it being now a widely accepted fact that forcing competition into areas of public service has been a disaster for us all.

For example, EDF, the French owners of my electricity service, wrote recently to say how bitterly they regretted the unavoidable increase they were forced, very much against their wishes, to ask me to pay for my power.

Their profits, reported in February 2011? 1.02 billion Euros.

Let me repeat that: 1.02billion Euros. Of profit.

Ah, EDF would say, no doubt with a grimace of distress, but our profits fell 74%.

Yes, I would say: that’s because you stuck money aside to cover risks in your international business. And yes, I would say – shouldn’t that extra 74% in previous years have insulated us all from your greed now?

But that’s just one example of the way the free market has “helped” us.

Wiggling bums

(Now that’s what I call search engine optimisation).

A happy band gathered at the pub to watch the rugby World Cup final on Sunday over coffee and bacon baps, and in the regrettable example of certain Brothers and Sisters at 10am on a Sunday, pints.

Was it really eight years ago we sat there watching England win the competition? Our late and much lamented Brother Nigel howling encouragement from his sick room upstairs and a certain Sister wiggling her bum in concert with Johnny Wilkinson as he lined up each penalty… happy days.

The French rather ruined the party this time, though, by refusing to eat cheese while running up the white flag: their defiance made for a real thriller, though, and matters were so tense few bums were wiggled. You can’t have everything.