Golden touch comes with a heart of stone
I’VE met a few rich people – all men – in my time in this game.
They didn’t strike me as happy. I’ve encountered more cheerful souls on picket lines.
So what would I say if billionaire retail bandit Sir Philip Green asked me to one of his celebrity- rammed, champagne-soaked parties?
I’d go, if it was casual (not fancy) dress, just to see how the wicked wealthy live. And to write about it.
Since that will never happen, I’m free to say what I like about Britain’s most reviled boss. A man described as rude, foul-mouthed and vituperative – by his friends.
He can retire on his ill-gotten gains in tax haven Monaco, sunning himself on his three superyachts with Lady Tina, to whom he gifted £1.2billion from the business in 2005.
Star-struck Tony Blair, who knighted Sir Fillmyboots, once praised him as “the person who thought up the dream and dreamt the dream into reality.”
Yes, and the man now responsible for the Christmas nightmare for 13,000 employees in his shops, and another 10,000 company pensioners.
If this appalling episode teaches us anything, it is that the wealthy don’t care about the people who do the work and make the profits that enrich them.
A report yesterday showed that top company bosses are 41 times more interested in financial targets than looking after the health, advancement and morale of their employees.
And they fight tooth and nail to prevent them from organising in trade unions.
Nothing has really changed in the mentality of the rich since Victorian times. Forget the cosy paternalism of Downton Abbey. When push comes to shove, they do the shove and “the little people” get the push.
This is supposed to be the season of goodwill towards all men.
Tell that to the shopworkers of Topshop and Burton, and the staff of Debenhams, closing its doors after 242 years because the collapse of Sir Greedy’s Arcadia group crashed a takeover deal.
City slickers credited him with “the Midas touch” because everything he touched turned to gold.
In the Greek myth, King Midas died because his food and drink turned into gold, illustrating the folly of human avarice.
Not that fate perhaps, but...
The wealthy don’t care about the people who enrich them