Sir Shifty, tainted fees and fearless Mr Field

RIGHTLY, public anger over the BHS scandal has focused on the unscrupulous, grasping figure of ‘Sir Shifty’ Philip Green.

But as the bullying High Street tycoon suns himself on one of his three superyachts, apparently unconcerned about the 11,000 former employees and 21,000 pension scheme members he left high and dry, others bear a heavy responsibility for aiding and abetting his shocking conduct.

These include some of the most prominent firms in the City, which were prepared to lend spurious respectability to Green’s sale of the company he had plundered to a palpably untrustworthy, thrice-bankrupt chancer for £1.

Accountants PwC and Grant Thornton, corporate lawyers Linklater and Olswang – all were deeply implicated, while none did anything to block a deal that blatantly stank to high heaven.

As this paper has passionately argued, the City owes its leading role in global finance to a reputation for integrity built up over centuries.

Already tarnished by the reckless greed that caused the banking crisis, that precious good name has now been further undermined by this appalling scandal.

This is why the Mail strongly backs calls, led by Work and Pensions Committee chairman Frank Field, for the firms involved to donate their ‘tainted fees’ to the victims of Green’s rapacity.

True, the £10million or more they received for their work on this shabby deal is a drop in the ocean of the hundreds of millions owed to BHS employees and pensioners.

But as a moral gesture of atonement for their complicity, it would at least be some small acknowledgment of how egregiously they have failed in their public duty. Meanwhile HMRC, which devotes such tireless energy to pursuing small businesses, must be utterly ruthless in pursuing Green for every penny of tax he may owe – while Theresa May should press ahead without delay in closing the loopholes he exploited.

Indeed, with the good name of capitalism at stake, shouldn’t Mrs May immediately strip Sir Philip of his knighthood – and confer the honour instead on the fearless and indefatigable Mr Field?