St Paul's cleaners outraged over 'dirty protest'

Days later, Dr Giles Fraser resigned as Canon Chancellor of St Paul's over disagreements on the handling of the demonstrators. The Dean of the cathedral, Rt Revd Graeme Knowles, then handed in his resignation following the backlash against his Chapter's resolution to forcibly evict the Occupy London protesters.

The City of London Corporation had threatened legal action to evict demonstrators, but activists said they would fight any action to remove them.

Archbishop Sentamu, the second most important figure in the Church of England, is the latest to add his voice to the debate, criticising the excesses in the financial sector that helped to create huge inequalities in wealth, "demonstrating how scandalously unfair our society is".

Writing in the Yorkshire Post, the Archbishop of York called for a change in public attitudes towards excessive personal wealth as profound and rapid as moves against racism, homophobia and sex discrimination in recent decades.

He said: "If they [FTSE 100 chief executives] have a responsibility to their staff, it is hard to imagine a more powerful way of telling someone that they are of little value than to pay them one-third of one per cent of your salary.

"Top pay has been found to bear little or no relation to company performance, but even if it did, isn't the performance of a company dependent on the work and wellbeing of all its staff?

"Among the ill-effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive."