CORPORATE rules allowing shareholders to gorge on profits while workers bear the brunt of economic uncertainty cannot continue into a post-coronavirus world, a think tank said today.

Research by the left-wing organisation Common Wealth has revealed that Britain’s biggest firms paid out £400 billion in dividends between 2011 and 2018 — equivalent to 68 per cent of the firms’ net profits over the same period.

This stream of cash towards shareholders’ pockets and away from reinvestment or workers’ wages has undermined the resilience of businesses and weakened them heading into the crisis, the report claims.