The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Those Who Work Hard and Play by the Rules

As the House of Expenses Claimants bids its dewy-eyed farewell to its oldest inhabitant, the cheery bon vivant Kenneth Clarke, some corporate chums of his are falling victim to humourless legalism. British American Tobacco, with which Clarke was closely associated while it encouraged children to take up smoking, may be forced to pay compensation for misleading workers and enforcing child labour in its fields. Since regulation in Malawi exists at a level about which the Conservative Party can only dream rather damply, BAT was able to indulge in a bit of entrepreneurial buccaneering and, like any respectable slave-owner outsource its more uncompromising fiscal disciplines to an overseer. Despite BAT's precautions in commissioning a separate company to keep its own hands lily-white, the lawyers are maintaining the ludicrous fiction that BAT is responsible for the conditions of its workers even though it does nothing more than profit by their labour. We must certainly be glad, on behalf of Kenneth Clarke, that he has managed to retire before the dice became any more loaded and the world any more ruthless towards his all too vulnerable social class.

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