The unacceptable face of capitalism
Unacceptable behaviour should have real consequences
Keir Starmer’s calling for “the return of the sausages”, rather than “the return of the hostages”, shows that political speeches are never improved by mis-reading them. Well, almost never. 51 years ago our then Prime Minister, Ted Heath, was the exception that proves the rule. Rather than describing Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho as an “unacceptable facet of capitalism”, as expected, he mis-spoke and called the company the “unacceptable face of capitalism”.
The Grenfell enquiry has shown, once more, the unacceptable face of capitalism.
The Grenfell Enquiry’s final report says that “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”
This quote is not an isolated one - the manufacturers were found to have “sought to exploit what it perceived to be a weak regulatory regime in the UK, while withholding from the market relevant information about the product’s fire performance”. They “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”, and the claims were “not being made in error by rogue junior employees, but with the knowing approval of a senior manager.”
The companies contest these comments, but a judicial procedure’s job is to come to a conclusion and Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a retired judge, has done just that. The question is what to do now.
One of the Brexit freedoms is that the government is now in a much stronger position to take absolute and unambiguous actions…