Bad business

WHEN blameless workers are losing their jobs and services such as school meals are threatened, the probe into Carillion’s directors better not be a whitewash.

But the collapse of the construction and contracting giant is about much more than the behaviour of its board.

The scandal goes to the heart of state-aided casino capitalism which profits hedge fund speculators when firms fail and subsidises stock market gambles with public cash. And taxpayers pick up the bills when it fails. Jeremy Corbyn calls it a “watershed moment”. Let us hope he is right because it should be. The 2007 and 2008 collapse of banks should have been a turning point.

Sadly it was not. We must not make the same mistake again. We need a new way of doing business after Carillion’s crash.