Why we’re owed Carillion’s billions

I’m finding it increasingly hard to deal with the anger produced by the way people who run big businesses are allowed to cheat us.

There were two prime examples on Monday. First, tech firms like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon saw tens of billions wiped off their worth in one day of stock trading. Yet when governments ask them for tens of millions in unpaid taxes they say they don’t have that kind of money as it’s all reinvested.

On the same day Carillion bosses grovelled before MPs saying how upset and sorry they were that they allowed the firm to collapse with a billion-pound pension deficit and a billion-pound debt, despite giving themselves lavish pay and bonuses right until the end.

If courts can take the savings, cars and houses off guilty criminals, why can’t we do the same to guilty sharks who knowingly enriched themselves by gambling with workers’ pensions and livelihoods?