Last week it emerged that Ben van Beurden received more than €20 million as Royal Dutch Shell boss for 2018. This prompted howls of outrage from the usual sources.

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Napoleon Bonaparte and Dwight Eisenhower said they wanted lucky generals rather than great ones. FTSE chairmen, however, seem to have little interest in luck when it comes to their chief executives.

That is one conclusion to draw from the debate about executive pay that is reigniting as we enter AGM season. Last week it emerged that Ben van Beurden received more than €20 million as Royal Dutch Shell boss for 2018. This prompted howls of outrage from the usual sources.

One particular part of Shell’s comments on Mr van Beurden’s pay struck me. The company said it had “long had a policy of not adjusting remuneration measures to take into account changes in oil and gas prices and currency fluctuations”. Shell had a strong year…