News this morning that directors of FTSE 100 companies gave themselves a 55 per cent rise in total remuneration in the last year would be astonishing at the best of times. At a time of job cuts, austerity and recent recession, it is even more surprising.

My colleague Jonathan Guthrie suggests in today’s Lombard column:

Short of throwing a champagne celebration for themselves outside a Merthyr Tydfil jobcentre, FTSE 100 bosses could not have shown less tact.

This is why I was frantically seeking political reaction yesterday to the report by Incomes Data Services, which is on our front page today. Criticism came obligingly from Vince Cable, union leaders and from Labour figures including John Denham (Kelvin Hopkins said it was a “moral outrage”.) Although it’s not quite clear that any of them have a magic bullet to solve the issue.

Ed Miliband’s reaction? No comment whatsoever.

It’s not as if this isn’t a subject close to his heart, supposedly. During the summer he said salary differentials were far too wide – and called for Will Hutton’s official review should be extended to the private sector. (Hutton, curiously, is only tasked with examining state-sponsored salaries).

Miliband’s caution reminds me of Tuesday last week when Labour’s new leader didn’t attend the TUC rally (which he had promised to go on), with aides saying it wasn’t a rally.

You can understand his determination to shed the Red Ed tag and try to position Labour as close to the centre ground as possible. But those who heard him during scores of summer hustings may now be confused about what he does stand for.

An interesting exchange at Treasury select committee this morning, where Lord Turnbull – former head of the civil service – seemed to question George Osborne’s claim that Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy until now.

Chuka Umunna: “You said that you didn’t think the issues that had been raised in relation to sovereign debt and the UK were relevant. What did you mean by that?”

Lord Turnbull: “Well I always thought that we were capable of producing a financial settlement that wouldn’t take us into Irish and Greek problems. Secondly, a very large part of our debt was domestically held. If people are going to sell gilts they’ve got to buy something else. Who are these great shining examples of people who are issuing rock solid debt you want to buy?”

Chuka Umunna: Do you think it is accurate to describe the UK as being on the brink of bankruptcy?

Lord Turnbull: No, I don’t.”

I brought you news on Monday about the Charles Walker proposal to slash the number of ministers in line with MPs. It turns out that his amendment did get called and there was a vote on Monday night – which he lost by only 293 votes to 252.

No fewer than 22 Tory MPs defied the whips and backed Walker, although this is fewer than the Tory backbencher had anticipated. “You wouldn’t believe how many of them told me they agreed and would give me their vote – and then changed their minds,” he tells me. “It’s taught me rather a lot.”

Looking through the order papers there are some interesting names among the rebels: Andrew Tyrie, Bernard Jenkin, Graham Brady (chair of the 22 Committee) and Mark Field amongst them.

This news is conveniently timed given that the coalition are cracking down on the bulging budget for housing benefit. How ironic then that it is being delivered by the doomed Audit Commission, which is being axed by Eric Pickles within months.

According to the commission, councils detected £135m worth of fraud last year involving 119,000 individual cases. The bulk – almost £100m – involved housing benefit fraud. Another £15m of council tax fraud was found along with people fraudulently claiming personal budgets for social care. (This is where people are given money directly to buy the care they need, rather than social services directly providing it.)

Housing tenancy fraud has emerged as one of the biggest issues, the commission said, with almost 1,600 social housing properties recovered that have been illegally sublet. That is only a fraction of the estimated 50,000 houses and flats that may be illegally occupied.

The commission also said there had been a big rise in the number of people claiming a single person’s discount on the council tax. Typically one in 20 such claims are false, according to councils.

This annual survey will end next year when the Audit Commission is abolished.