It is always comforting for a jaded and cynical soul like myself to witness the moral high ground being scaled by the great and the good. And some must be suffering from acrophobia and oxygen starvation, they have climbed so high.
Sir Philip Green, what have you done? Apart from unifying every shade of the establishment against you, of course.
Some of the epithets attributed to your character would be more at home in a B-Movie Western, but the sentiment remains constant. And, I must be honest, I have absolutely no intention of defending you, except to say that, as far as I am aware, you have not been found guilty of anything, yet.
But, unscrupulous, uncaring, exploitative, immoral; that should cover your business activities nicely.
So why the friendly, first name terms? Well, if Parliament has its way, the Sir will shortly disappear, so I thought I would get ahead of the crowd.
Of more interest to me is the cross-party, cross-cultural, crossness of the criticism flying around. From the highest to the lowest, universal condemnation.
Whilst I feel the lowest, and the middle, have every right to bellow their horror and disgust, perhaps the higher strata should take a moment.
If, for example, we were to examine the membership of the House of Lords, I am confident we could discover a goodly number of honoured captains of industry, applauded for their entrepreneurial skills, their commercial achievements. Are they all gleaming with saintly perfection?
And, to concentrate down onto the particular gentleman – that generated a choke – someone thought it would be a good idea to make him a Sir in the first place.
Assuming that, like an oil tanker, it takes a significant time for a leader of industry to change direction, it has to be accepted that his working methods haven’t change much over the years. It just took a while to emerge.
And the recent revelations of the treatment of care workers, or those employed by Sports Direct and Amazon – don’t even start on the tax – all starts to paint a picture more akin to Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’, than Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’.
Lauded as drivers of the economy, of generators of new jobs, it doesn’t take long for the mirage to dissolve and the truth emerge. And the whiplash caused by the change of direction by their erstwhile supporters is demonstrated by the height of their dudgeon.
So Phil, if I can call you Phil, I have no sympathy for you, and no empathy for your situation, particularly as you don’t seem to give a damn. However, I do have a word for you to say to any of the current hornets nest of critics you have stirred up.
hypocrisy.
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