While they cut the wages of their employees and attack their working conditions and cause stikes that distrupt everyones life public sector bosses are stuffing their own pockets with taxpayers' money.

Channel 4's director of programmes Kevin Lygo received £1,136,000 in the 2008/09 financial year while the Prime Minister earned just over £193,000 in the same period.

The figures show the chief executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, was the second highest paid public sector worker, earning £995,000.

Mr Lygo, who began his career as a comedy scriptwriter and worked with the likes of the Two Ronnies, was paid a salary of £773,000 and received £12,000 in benefits and a bonus of £350,000.

Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson said Mr Lygo had volunteered to take a pay cut.  Was that before or after is salary was going to be made public?

Figures obtained by ITV1's Tonight programme show Mr Crozier's pay was made up of £633,000 in salary, a £139,000 bonus and a further £17,000 in benefits, plus a £206,000 cash supplement in place of a pension payment.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said his pay was less than the year before despite the business doubling its profits in the same period.  Less than last year? Poor thing. But that doesn't stop him attacking the working conditions of postal workers and making them redundant and causing strikes.

Third on the list was Network Rail's chief executive Iain Coucher, who earned £830,000. A spokesman for Network Rail described it as "a private company delivering a public service".