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MT editor Matthew Gwyther's take on the burning business issues of the day.

Editor's blog: Why this new Puritanism is pointless   

Those of you who don’t live or work down in The Big Smoke may be unaware of the joys of the capital’s Metro. Metro is a freesheet distributed to London commuters who – if they have nothing better to do - take on average about two and a half minutes to consume it cover to cover.  It is not high-end editorially. It’s cheap, tries to be cheerful and makes ‘Take A Break’ look like the Wall Street Journal. 

Anyway this morning it has a screaming headline about – you’ve guessed it – MPs’ expenses. The headline reads ‘From the sublime to the ridiculous…’ and under it are the contrasting stories of Anthony Steen, the pompous MP for Totnes who’s been caught milking his expenses for his Devon mansion and Laura Moffat, MP for Crawley, who’s taken to kipping on a camp bed in her Westminster office because she has, ‘always believed it is wrong for public servants to make money out of the public purse’. Quite apart from the fact that it’s an illiterate headline, even for the sub-Daily Mail outrage they are trying to express, this story is so wrong-headed it’s hard to know where to start.

The new Puritanism currently taking the nation by storm, in which everyone tries to outdo the next man in acts of self-denial, is both tedious and daft. Puritans are a short-sighted, monotonous lot. If you wish to be ruled by a bunch of incorruptibles like Robespierre and Lenin – bloodless, witch-hunting technocrats with no sense of imagination, creativity or humanity, then fine. I don’t know about you, but my reaction when hearing that Esther Rantzen was planning to stand for parliament was one of dumbstruck horror. What has this woman ever done apart from introduce the great British viewing public to carrots shaped like the male reproductive organ? I’d take Anthony Steen with his rabbit-guards or Sir Peter Viggers and his duck island over Esther any time. 

Sleeping on a camp bed in your office is not the answer to anything. It’s a dumb, symbolic act that is uncivilised, impractical, demoralising and will probably mean the sublime Ms Moffat winds up totally exhausted and unable to work properly for the benefit of her constituents. But she has a wafer-thin majority of 37, so she’s clearly absolutely desperate to be seen to be doing 'The Right Thing'.

The same applies to Puritanism in business. If you send your people economy-class half way across the world for important meetings at which big contracts are at stake, they are going to feel firstly hard done by and secondly like death warmed-up when they spill out bleary-eyed into the arrivals hall at Mumbai or Los Angeles. It’s a false economy. Likewise, if you remove biscuits from meetings it might save you a few quid, but it makes everyone feel miserable. But misery is what seems to be in demand at the moment. We all have to don our hairshirts and suffer. We’ve all been very bad and have to sit it out on the naughty step. But naughty steps are as ineffective and unproductive for adults as they are for boisterous children.



In today's bulletin:
Fasten your seatbelts - BA nosedives to record loss
Non-Standard and Poor outlook for UK economy
Editor's blog: Why this new Puritanism is pointless
Why green shoots lead to recovery
Resigning in style, with YouTube

Published May 22 2009, 11:29 AM by matthew gwyther
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All Comments

J Potter May 22, 2009
Whilst Esther Rantzen might have finally been remembered for the vegatables it does not allow you to dismiss a career of nearly 30 years championing the public in the face of dodgy business practicies. I for one at least can appreciate that she does have some handle on real life and the way it affects people, rather than these MPs who seem totally devoid of reality in what life is like for the masses in Britain. Just like Martin Bell, the honesty and integrity of the woman is more likely to get people engaged again in a political debate and electron, whereas the main parties will yet again put forward their cloned monkeys sporting the appropriate coloured rosette expecting the public to vote like turkeys for Christmas. Again Matthew, I think you are wrong.
Malcolm Rose May 22, 2009
Ordinary hard-working people are furious. It does you no good to champion MPs who have lost the sense of right and wrong. This kind of behaviour will at least reduce the need for your businessmen to fly around the world since no one will want to do business with a corrupt bunch. Or if they do they will count their fingers carefully afterwards. Like your previous blogger you are wrong again. And the last time you uttered on this subject all your respondents said you were wriong. Are you a frustrated politician?
John Bunyard May 22, 2009
I think you may be in a very small minority here, Ed. Your bet is that this is just another of the British public's ridiculous periodical fits of morality. But it could prove a tipping point, occasioned by the release of years of suppressed anger. Just be careful that you don't come out smelling the same as all the discredited fatcats.
Jeff Allen May 22, 2009
Ed This is the second time you have missed the point. Our population are loosing businesses, homes, savings & pensions whilst the MPs we trust to guide us through the turmoil have in many cases been stealing from the public purse. Yes we have bigger problems to deal with like the debt the country now has, the Standard & Poor credit rating which could push up the cost of public borrowing but most citizens do not understand the complexity of this level of finance but they do understand claiming for second mortgage interest relief (without incurring capital gains tax on the eventual sale), .99p plugs, wide screen TVs etc. Actually the press cast themselves as the puritans whilst this kind of scandal makes them rich from extra copies I would be careful about blaming us the public.
James Taylor (Web Ed) May 22, 2009
Malcolm - i don't think he was championing MPs (take Laura Moffatt, for instance) - or defending their ludicrous excesses. it's not that the outrage isn't justified - the point was that if we go too far the other way as a consequence, the outcome could also be pretty unattractive. (Although it's all relative, of course!)
Richard Kunzmann May 22, 2009
"If you wish to be ruled by a bunch of incorruptibles like Robespierre and Lenin – bloodless, witch-hunting technocrats with no sense of imagination, creativity or humanity, then fine." -- sounds like the same old sub-Daily Mail line to me. As much as I think the camp-bed PR stunt as ludicrous as the expenses some of these MPs have been claiming, I find your assertion that business people should be flying business class on behalf of their companies equally torrid. I am a frequent flyer myself, and see no reason why companies should pay the exhorbitant fees for business class bed-seats, when that money could be better applied elsewhere. It's this attitude of entitlement to business "necessities" that's lead us into the financial crisis we are facing. And to MP expenses claims, for that matter.
matthew gwyther May 24, 2009
It's not often I find myself in full agreement with the Archbish of Canterbury but on this occasion Williams is spot on http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6344882.ece This tearing down the house is dangerous and futile. I hear the poor old BBC is next - currently bracing themselves for a dose of the attack dogs on expenses. And I'm not blaming the public, Jeff, just asking them to be very careful they don't seek to destroy things they will later regret.
Martin Pearaon June 8, 2009
Hmmm - so Robespierre and Lenin are Puritans now?!!! Which branch of Protestant Christianity are they from? Perhaps you should read through Bunyans Pilgrims Progress for a quick run through the issues we still might benefit from paying attention to....
 
 
 
 

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