The hardest word
If Mike Ashley is saying sorry, we really are in a new era Ben Marlow
There’s been a disturbance in the force. Mike Ashley, a man who once felt compelled to tell a panel of MPS “I’m not Father Christmas”, has issued a formal apology for trying to flout government guidelines and keep Sports Direct stores open.
It is difficult to overstate the significance of this. The tracksuit and trainer tycoon is not someone that tends to do contrition. Ashley also told the same MPS in 2016: “I’m not saying I’ll make the world wonderful.”
Well, his employees will attest to that. His attempt to continue selling Slazenger tennis rackets and golf towels on the basis that it was “well placed to keep the UK as fit and healthy as possible during the crisis” was plainly a cynical attempt to put profit before the safety of hard-working staff.
It is these same people, half of whom are employed on zero-hours contracts, that have helped turn Sports Direct into a high street phenomenon and propel its founder into the ranks of the super-rich.
Yes, Ashley deserves great recognition for building one of the UK’S most successful businesses from scratch. He is the epitome of the risk-taking entrepreneur, someone that has created vast wealth not just for himself but for investors and the people that work in his shops.
The Sports Direct bonus scheme is one of the most generous currently in existence, though only a relatively small proportion of the workforce tend to benefit from it. And he has single-handedly saved swathes of the high street from the scrap-heap, albeit with mixed results.
Yet Ashley would get far more credit if as well as ensuring that the fruits of his spoils are enjoyed during the good times, he also protected his workforce during the bad, instead of rushing to preserve his own wealth. It works both ways. That responsibility can’t simply be magicked away during a downturn.
It would have been nice to hear him also say sorry for ramping up prices in response to the lockdown, but the Competition and Markets
Authority will hopefully be taking a forensic look into that.
Still, Ashley sounds genuinely remorseful when he says he is “deeply apologetic” for trying to keep his stores open and admits the request was “ill-judged and poorly timed”. It is a bold and rare admission of wrongdoing.
And at least he went to the trouble of issuing one, which is more than can be said about Next. The chain made a similar blunder by continuing with online orders, a move that meant staff in its warehouses were still having to turn up for work, in what some complained were cramped conditions that made social distancing impossible. It is rare that Next boss Simon Wolfson gets it wrong but this was a moment of considerable misjudgement.
We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be fooled, however. Ashley sees everything with a commercial brain. If it wasn’t for a stinging rebuke from Michael Gove, Sports Direct stores wouldn’t have closed their doors. And without the ferocious backlash, including threats of a boycott, it is unlikely we would have heard anything from its maverick founder.
The lights go out at Brighthouse
The anticipated collapse of rental chain Brighthouse is devastating news for the 2,400 people that work there. The Government’s massive package of support won’t be enough to save those businesses that were already in intensive care. Every job that is lost is one too many.
But there will be few tears shed for Brighthouse, a business that pushes society’s poorest further into debt with sky-high interest rates on electrical goods. The high street will be a better place without it.
‘Ashley would get far more credit if he protected his workforce during the bad times’