The Curmudgeon

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

Monday, March 31, 2008

Performance-Related Pay

The former boss of Northern Rock is called Adam and the new boss is called Sandler. That's as good an explanation as any for the Hollywood-sized payout Adam Applegarth will receive for his part in bringing this delightful comedy before the British taxpayer. The collapse of Northern Rock has been blamed on "exceptional costs related to the company's strategic review after the money markets froze last summer and ruined its business model, as well as writedowns on investments linked to the credit crunch" or, in Standard English, a failure to lay effective contingency plans. As the man in charge of this failure, Mr Amplegirth will get rather more than three-quarters of a million pounds over the rest of this year, provided only that he doesn't earn a salary of more than twenty thousand during that time. I am sure we all hope he can endure the hardship.

Northern Rock is pledged to repay twenty-four thousand million in Government loans by the end of 2010; it is unclear whether Gordon's little Darling has authorised any bailiffs to kick Adam's front door down in the event of a default.

In other news, environmental campaigners may have been proven wrong in their dire predictions concerning the effect of the new terminal at Heathrow. The last few days have been an encouraging example of the ways in which airlines really can help to reduce Britain's carbon footprint. Given the intelligence and entrepreneurial spirit of the British holidaymaker, it may take only a few more months of cancelled flights, lost luggage, untrained staff and incompetent management before a nearly significant number decide that staying at home is better for the health, whether environmental or merely mental.

Predictably, the Government has responded by putting pressure on BA to get the carbon footprint up to its proper seven-league size, while the Upper Miliband has castigated British Airways for treating foreign ministers in the same way as it treats the proles.

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