I spent the last couple of weeks on a little island in the Indian Ocean. Even there it was impossible to escape the news from home.
The bombing of Kyiv, displacement of two million refugees. One bloke in the hotel reckoned nuclear war was on the cards.
It is always terrible to come back from holiday, this time particularly so. It’s not just Ukraine.
Politically, it’s the policing bill, the weird online harms bill, the continuing sideshow of Boris Johnson – currently enjoying a “war bounce” that not many people can see lasting.
And now P&O.
I have a long-standing argument with a friend of mine, who reckoned the world would change post-pandemic.
That the whole of society would re-evaluate what and who is important.
The people who got us through it would be properly rewarded and there would be a great sea change in the way society conducts itself.
Me, I am a lot more pessimistic.
We all saw some of the behaviour at the height of the pandemic; the grubby PPE deals, the odd politics, the empty promises to doctors and nurses.
It happened before the pandemic and during. Why would it be any different after?
And what finer example do you need, ladies and gentlemen, than the example of P&O Ferries.
A horrible story, even with Ukraine as a backdrop.
Eight hundred jobs gone in the blink of an eye. The announcement made by some chancer over a videolink. This is an outfit, remember, that between us we spent £10million on during the pandemic as it furloughed 1,400 of its staff (Labour say they’ve had £38million out of the taxpayer).
Same firm that asked for a £150million bailout at one point, and with all that, still managed to pay out £250million to shareholders.
And just as the end of the pandemic appears on the horizon, they sack 800 people. Contracts gone, the same day.
I’m not going to draw any kind of false equivalency with the war but the overall mood of tackling bullies and protecting the weak from the powerful should be applied here.
Government can help. There must be legislation to stop the kind of P&O situation developing again.
Louise Haigh, Labour’s shadow transport secretary, said: “If it’s not illegal, it should be and you should be doing everything possible now to make sure it is.”
We might be waiting a while for that but in the meantime, we can do our bit.
Boycotting dodgy firms, buying from independents, doing our own due diligence. And business itself? Well, a bit of help from them would not go amiss.
Bit more compassion, self-regulation, treating workers properly.
And paying, you know, tax. The tax gap – the lag between what should be paid and what IS paid – is currently estimated to be around £50billion.
We could do with that cash at the moment, so if you could pay up, that would be handy.
Afterwards we could have a chat about how things are run. But £50billion first and then we’ll go from there.
