Men only backlash
As fury mounts over celebrities and fat cats who attended notorious ‘groper’s ball’. . . bookshops pull party host David Walliams’s titles from shelves and shoppers threaten Ocado boycott
IT IS the online grocery firm beloved of middle Britain – but Ocado was facing a backlash last night after its boss admitted attending the scandalhit Presidents Club charity gala.
Some customers vented their anger at chief executive Tim Steiner and vowed to shop elsewhere as nationwide indignation grew over the sleazy event, which saw hostesses routinely groped and sexually harassed.
Even host David Walliams came under fire, despite condemning the behaviour of the male guests. Three independent bookstores announced they were pulling comedian and author Walliams’s bestselling children’s books from their shelves in protest at his involvement in the menonly event. Natasha Radford, owner of the Chicken & Frog Bookshop in Brentwood, Essex, said: ‘We are shooting ourselves in the foot because we do get a lot of parents coming in asking for Walliams’s books. But sometimes we have to stand up for what we believe in.’
However, many on social media argued that the furious response was an overreaction. The backlash came as The Mail on Sunday obtained a copy of the application form that hostesses were asked to complete for a previous club dinner in 2013. It warned of ‘high-end male businessmen’ whose ‘egos need to be stroked!’
The gala earlier this month at the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Mayfair appears to have provoked a resurgence of political correctness across Britain. In one extreme example, a theatre in Hull banned a stage version of the classic sitcom Are You Being Served? after it was deemed ‘demeaning to women’. But it was Ocado, the quintessentially middleclass grocer that, perhaps surprisingly, bore much of the opprobrium – after the high-flying men who attended the gala, that is.
Typifying the febrile mood, one woman tweeted that she would not ‘indirectly fund’ Mr Steiner’s involvement with the charity event. ‘We don’t march for this,’ she said.
Harini Iyengar, of the Women’s Equality Party, said: ‘I and many other loyal Ocado customers have been dismayed by its silence on the Presidents Club story. Instead of addressing people’s concerns and denouncing the appalling treatment of women at the event, they have ducked questions about Tim Steiner’s attendance. After seven years as a customer, I have cancelled my subscription.’
She also offered to host a training session for the company on equality and diversity.
Isabelle Roughol, a managing editor at social media platform LinkedIn, has also cancelled her Ocado subscription. ‘It’s 2018, gentlemen, catch up. Now to find a decent grocery service,’ she said. Other customers demanded an explanation from Ocado. When it finally came – that Mr Steiner was simply attending the event in a
‘Until Steiner leaves, I’ll not shop with you’
‘personal capacity’ – it failed to silence the chorus of disapproval. PR director Natalie Kelley tweeted: ‘Until Steiner parts ways with the company, I will not be shopping with you. To say he was there in a “personal capacity” is not an excuse and, in many ways, is even worse.’
Ocado did not respond to requests to comment last night.
Hostesses working at the Presidents Club event were groped, had hands shoved up their skirts, their bottoms fondled and were repeatedly asked to join guests in the hotel’s bedrooms, it is claimed. It is also alleged that Presidents Club co-trustee Bruce Ritchie demanded 140 ‘tall, thin beauties’ with ‘smoky, sexy eyes and bright red lips’ for the gala. They were hired by the Artista agency, run by Caroline Dandridge. According to the company’s website, she has worked for major corporate clients including Breitling, Moet Hennessy and Bentley.
Among the testimonials on its website is one from Mr Ritchie’s property company Residential Land. It says: ‘Artista clearly understands the diverse requirements of a corporate client however obscure and demanding they may be.’