With these role models, go figure why we lack integrity
Maurice O'Brien • Published 3 Feb 2012 09:00
WAS anyone surprised to learn from last week's Essex University study on integrity that over the last decade we've become a nation of liars
and cheats?
Seemingly 80% of us wouldn't hand back money we found in the street, 60% would lie in a job application, 30% would happily consider buying stolen goods, and we don't even seem to trust each other that much any more. But then again, why should we? Whatever became of integrity?
Role model-wise, as recently as 2003 our subsequently self-beatified Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box in the Commons and lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to take us to war. Last week Dave Harnett, permanent secretary for tax at HM Revenue & Customs, lambasted everyone who's ever paid a window cleaner, chippy, or other hard-working lifesaver cash in hand for their labours, for "diddling" the nation. This from a man who stands accused by MPs - many of them not averse to a bit of the old cash-in-hand themselves - of doing "sweetheart deals" with the likes of Vodafone and Goldman Sachs and allegedly letting them off multi-millions in tax liabilities. Geese and ganders?
In 2008 Woolworth's was put into administration on advice dispensed to its bankers by corporate finance experts Deloitte, who had spurned a management attempt to save it. Deloitte were then appointed administrators, with a £9m fee for doing the winding up; the banks got paid but 30,000 staff got fired without redundancy money.
A tribunal ruled last week that Deloitte failed in its "legal duty" to consult on the redundancies, and awarded the sacked workers £67m. Woolworth's no longer exists, so who pays? Nah, not them. Us. The muggins taxpayer, again. All perfectly legal, but go figure, as they say.
Why did Stephen Hester take so long to give up his bonus? Or a sanctimonious Labour Party grant it in the first place? Why does nobody resign these days until the cell door slams? Why must we keep asking why?
Integrity? Bah humbug.
IT COULD have been a terrible typo, an attempt at satire, or simply another flaw in the education system, but there was much amusement here when I opened an otherwise inoffensive email addressed to, 'Dear Sir or Madman'.
But, having called last week for the return of the county council, might there be some significance in the fact that a subsequent email from the same correspondent made chilling reference to "the hole of Berkshire"?
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