SHAREHOLDERS at energy giant Centrica are being urged to block a “staggering” 44 per cent pay rise for its chief executive today.

Iain Conn hopes to trouser £2.4 million – an annual salary 72 times more than Centrica employees in the company’s lowest-paid quartile receive.

General union GMB has written to institutional shareholders at Centrica, which owns British Gas, asking them to block the pay rise for Mr Conn.

The union said the “ghost of Cedric the Pig” will haunt the company's annual meeting today.

GMB activists brought a live pig, called Cedric, to a British Gas shareholders meeting in 1996 in protest at the pay of then-chief executive Cedric Brown.

The union said thousands of British Gas workers had recently voted to accept cuts to their pensions to support the company return to competitiveness.

GMB national officer Justin Bowden said: “Cedric was signifying ‘snouts in the trough’ and it appears 23 years on the lessons of timing and foolish greed have not been learned.

“We have 15,000 members in Centrica, who are not being offered 4 per cent pay rises, never mind 44 per cent.”