closed for business
Without going over old ground, many of you will recall that I was, during my teenage years, a humble employee of British Home Stores. If so, you will also be aware of my critical view of Sir Philip Green, and the ever-manipulative Lady Green, who once observed from the marbled rooms of the company’s investment vehicle, Taveta, that her wheeler-dealer husband “does nothing without consulting me first”. Unfortunately, it gives me precious little pleasure in being proved right about their self-centred motivations & greedy actions and I suspect his on/off knighthood debacle is of little consolation, or even interest, to the eleven thousand ex-employees and many more thousands of pensioners. To further rub salt in the wound, it now transpires she’s still drawing millions out of the bankrupt company even now due the complex web of debt, rent, interest & loans that the two of them imposed on the business. Thankfully, it looks like they’re about to be rounded-up and run-out of town.
As the unacceptable face of capitalism, Sir Green, has deservedly become the poster boy of the current move against bad big business. Lectures on the moral dysfunction of corporate capitalism are now as common as complaints about the weather, and probably as effective. However, the speed at which the BHS/parliamentary report has been brought into the public domain is a strong sign that things are perhaps on the change, and the question on many lips is whether the new Prime Minister’s vow to crack down on ‘corporate irresponsibility’ is anything more than pulpit rhetoric and empty threat? Her pluralistic-style pledge includes, amongst other things, a plan to make annual shareholder votes on corporate pay binding rather than advisory, compulsory workforce representation, and a trap-door veto on foreign takeovers that are not deemed in the ‘national interest’. Personally, I see more life in the former than the latter but am more than willing to be proved wrong. However, the Brexit vote and the pulling-up of our proverbial drawbridge surely makes this all the more unlikely.
“We’ve heard it all before” I hear you cry? Yes, indeed you have, you heard it from the ol’ bacon-butty-muncher himself, Red Ed, and who’d’ve thought his legacy was safe in new-girl Theresa’s hands!
