NOT A FATCAT’S IDEA OF LUNCH!

WITH an annual salary of more than £4.5million in a normal year, corporate kingpin Dominic Blakemore is unlikely to be forced to eat pallid sliced bread, bruised bananas or a bar of soreen malt loaf for his lunch.

Far from it. Before the pandemic, businessmen like Mr Blakemore – the boss of catering giant Compass Group – used to congregate for lunch in exquisite restaurants like the wolseley, on London’s piccadilly.

as the boss of the FtsE 100 firm, he is ultimately responsible for the conduct of Chartwells – the Compass subsidiary that supplied the pitifully inadequate hampers supposed to replace free school meals.

the top job has been a highly rewarding affair so far. Despite having to take a hefty pay cut due to Covid, he still earned more than £1million in 2020.

indeed, in the short three years he has been chief executive, he has taken home more than £10million and over the time he has worked at Compass, he has also amassed a pile of shares in his employer worth around £3.9million.

the pay doled out to Charlie Brown, the managing director of Chartwells, and robin Mills, his direct boss, is not disclosed but will certainly be substantial.

so it is easy to see why the scandal of the meagre food parcels has become so toxic. on the surface, it looks like a Dickensian narrative of fat cat bosses lining their own pockets by taking food out of the mouths of poor children. the reality is more nuanced, though not necessarily more palatable.

Mr Blakemore is not your typical moustache- twirling, over- privileged capitalist. Brought up in a single-parent family, he worked his own way up the corporate ladder.

Good for him. yet the vast rewards he receives would make it hard for even the best-intentioned tycoon to stay in touch with the reality of life for lesswell off families. His pay is not out of kilter with the sums showered on his FtsE 100 peers. yet it is far removed from the experience of desperate parents trying to keep their kids fed.

Left-wing agitators have now created the impression that Compass tried to boost its own bottom line by fobbing off poor parents with insufficient food.

But if Compass has been trying to profiteer during the pandemic, it has failed because its earnings have collapsed by 80 per cent to £294million in the year to september.

Undeniably, the firm has let itself down. But it is unlikely it is raking in vast sums thanks to the hampers, which it scrambled to produce on tiny budgets.

But there is no excuse for treating families with such contempt. the company has said sorry. But if Mr Blakemore really wants to make amends, he should donate a large sum from his £10million fortune to a children’s charity. and he should deliver some of his food parcels himself. then he could listen to the concerns of the families.

who knows – it might even make a repeat of this appalling debacle less likely.