Bassnett is right to be outraged. I am happy for my vice-chancellor to be paid a lot of money as long as other staff get paid proportionate salaries that are also in keeping with other professions. If a v-c gets £165K, then a dean should get £120K, a professor £100K, a principal lecturer £75K, a senior lecturer £50K and a young lecturer with a newly minted PhD £30K.
The problem is not that v-cs get paid too much - the problem is that other ranks are ludicrously underpaid.
Paul R. Bowden
Department of computing and mathematics
Nottingham Trent University