Public furlough aid’s not for the rich, Posh
POSH still doesn’t get it. Two weeks ago, when she announced she was furloughing 30 staff at her ailing fashion label, there was a public outcry. No one could quite believe that a woman with a family fortune of £335million, a £32million house in London, a £6million pad in the Cotswolds AND a £17million luxury apartment in Miami would have the brass neck to ask for taxpayers’ money to bail out her business. Now, after a twoweek savaging that still hasn’t let up, Posh has done a U-turn saying she won’t now be taking the money. But, of course, it’s too late. The damage has been done. We’ve seen what she’s really about and Brand Beckham has been irreversibly damaged
“We didn’t know how long lockdown might last or it’s likely impact on the business,” she says. “The welfare of my team and our business means everything to me.”
But that’s clearly not true. First, the impact of lockdown on her business couldn’t be any worse than the millions that same business loses every year – £35million since it started in 2008. Second, if the welfare of her staff really WAS everything to her she’d have paid them in full out of her own pocket which would have amounted to about £250,000 – money she and David can make in a day.
“Victoria is devastated about the backlash,” says a source. Course she is. But it’s her own greed and stupidity that caused it. And saying she’s devastated isn’t the same as saying she can now see how utterly selfish she was in trying to take Government cash.
Even now she still doesn’t see the problem. It was just a week ago we were told she was stressed and furious about the criticism and that SHE was the victim here because she’d done nothing wrong. Maybe not legally. But morally? Hell, yes!
The trouble with Mrs Beckham is that with a husband who still earns millions she’s used to being bailed out when she cocks up.
If she was a legitimate businesswoman, having to succeed or fail on her own merits, her label would have gone bust years ago because it’s never once turned a profit. She’s been advised repeatedly to close her failing Mayfair shop but won’t because she’s too vain, too obsessed with image to admit failure. Victoria has always been about show, about how things look. Even in a global pandemic, she’s not grasped that it’s what you actually DO that counts – not what it looks like you’re doing. And she clearly thought that a few words of praise for NHS workers during the One World: Together At Home concert constituted doing her bit.
But if she cares so much about the NHS why take taxpayers’ cash that could be used to help it?
Truth is she’d never have reversed this decision to furlough staff if her reputation and her brand weren’t being trashed. She’s been shamed into it after it was revealed that Ed Sheeran and Simon Cowell ARE paying staff
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IT’S NO surprise that Meghan has lost the first round of her High Court battle against the Mail on Sunday. She’s suing the paper for breach of copyright for publishing extracts of a letter to her father, Thomas Markle.
But Mr Justice Warby has ruled that certain aspects of her allegations cannot be used in the court case, i.e. that the paper acted “dishonestly and in bad faith”, and that it had an “obvious agenda of publishing intrusive or offensive stories about her intended to portray her in a false and damaging light”.
Meghan must be furious because it means she won’t be able play the “poor, bullied me” card in court and push her (erroneous) claim that all the tabloids are picking on her. Still there’s always her and Harry’s new biography, Thoroughly Modern Royals: The Real World Of Harry And Meghan.
Trouble is there won’t be anything remotely real about this book. And whatever “truth” they’re peddling will be their biased version of it. And what we won’t get is any acceptance of responsibility for the position they now find themselves in and the fact that much of the negative publicity is their fault.
out of their own pockets and have called on other super-rich celebs to do the same. Which makes Victoria look even more grubby.
Posh thought all this would go away if she just kept her head down for a bit. But it hasn’t and it won’t. She doesn’t get that the furlough scheme was never supposed to be for rich divas like her to prop up a vanity project, the only purpose of which is to make her look like a successful businesswoman.
And no one should be under any illusion that the decision to pull out of the scheme isn’t about conscience or doing the right thing – it’s about saving her own skin.