This is where my philosophy of ‘freedom and protection’ most applies.
As stated above, I think we can now admit that the historic idealogical wars between socialism and free enterprise are over.
We have to accept that we live in a global, free market economy.
We also have to find a way of managing a free market economy based on trust and transparency. Too many people in business are too dishonest. Too many can 'get away with it'. And, if their employees get caught, too many companies, especially public companies, would rather buy these people off than risk any perceived damage to their corporate reputations. This includes giving false references for these known fraudsters.
It is imperative that if modern society is to be based on free market economics, there must be laws where companies found 'covering up' financial fraud by their employees, and sweeping these issues under the carpet, are heavily fined with criminal charges brought against managers, directors and owners.
My deepest concern is that 'career politicians' are the least qualified people to solve this problem. I'm not sure they even want to. It has been shown quite clearly that these politicians themselves have at best bent the rules and at worst committed criminal offences. We must not forget that these fiddles have not been perpetrated by a flipping few. It is the sheer number of offending MPs that is such a disgrace.
Can we really believe that, out of 646 MPs, not ONE of them was honest enough to 'blow the 'whistle'? Were the MPs who flipped their houses acting individually, purely by coincidence, knowing that they could weasle out of paying Capital Gains Tax in this way? Or was this a scam of which they were commonly aware and pretty much all of them knew what they were up to?
Let's face it, even the Party Leaders have had to repay wrongly claimed expenses. And, if they were Chief Executives of companies where systematic fraud such as this was taking place, should not they too be accountable for the behaviour of their employees? I believe they should.
In fact, I believe there is a case for them to face criminal charges themselves. For the avoidance of doubt, I am talking about Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg here. On their way up through their careers in politics, did it never reach the ears of any ONE of these three that expenses scams were being perpetrated by any of their colleagues in any of their three parties?
Either they know what was going on and turned a blind eye - which I believe should be a criminal offence.
Or they didn't know, in which case are they 'true and proper' people to be leading their parties, especially as they bent the rules themselves?
In the commercial world, I believe the answers to these questions are as clear as daylight.
And why it is time for people like me to stand up and be counted.....
In 1992, I was head-hunted by an international advertising group to be Managing Director of a London subsidiary called CM:Lintas.
Soon after my arrival, I realised the Chairman was perpetrating a financial fraud against the company and I reported this to the senior management of the holding company in London.
In order to protect the scam, these managers retained the fraudster and fired me. It emerged that he had told lies about me in order to get me out of the way and the senior managers supported him.
In 1997, after five long years, the holding company (Interpublic) caved in, admitted I had been fired for false reasons and that I had been ‘justified in bringing these proceedings’ (lawyer-speak for admitting the fraud) and I was compensated with substantial damages.
During these five years, my lawyer advised me to beware my telephone was being tapped, not to stand near the line at railway stations, to discard rubbish away from my house and check the brakes of my car before driving. A mysterious person even called my old school to check that I had obtained five A Levels and if I had lied about this on my CV (of course, I hadn’t). I suspect this person was working for a private detective.
At the end of the case, my lawyer advised me that at least three of the other side had committed criminal offences and should have been imprisoned. Quite the opposite happened. Despite the cost of the case, they carried on working for Interpublic for many years until retirement.
For me, having tried on numerous occasions to get back into the ‘bigtime’ international advertising and media groups, I have been told that, since this court case, I am seen as ‘damaged goods’. It’s a funny old world.
Not one of the political parties have even begun to define how to allow and encourage free enterprise yet, at the same time, protect society as a whole – particularly from financial greed and criminal behaviour.
In this free market economy, as our politicians themselves have shown, we have failed to place a value on the importance of integrity and this must change.
I would like to call for a major cross-party review of how Government can make laws which foster and encourage a free market economy and, at the same time, protect society from the wilful exploitation of this freedom.
For example, I believe that, in any business, action by an employer to knowingly pressurise an employee to lie on behalf of the management should be made a criminal offence. The perpetrators of these crimes should face prison sentences.
This is just one example. There are many others, including the experience I lived through myself, so neither the banking crisis nor the MPs expenses scandal surprised me. They are the tip of the iceberg. In business, it is far too easy to ‘get away with it’.
I support and applaud the work of the charity ‘Public Concern at Work’ (www.pcaw.co.uk) which helps whistle-blowers act in the public interest.
We have seen from the banking crisis that the effect of the ‘gambling culture’ on which our market economy relies can negatively impact society as a whole. Far more regulation is needed, particularly in creating a dividing line between the traditional role of the High Street banks from the ‘deal-makers’ in the City.
Furthermore, I believe the role of the stock markets should be thoroughly reviewed and examined. The business models of companies like John Lewis and the Co-op should be more pro-actively encouraged, pension funds should be ring-fenced from day-to-day corporate transactions and the Directors and Managers of public companies should be held to account far more rigidly.
Strict rules and codes of behaviour should be set and breaches thereof should be criminalised and punished by heavy fines and lengthy prison sentences. Madoff is the tip of another very big iceberg.
In my own legal action, I wrote every year to the Chief Executive of Interpublic saying that I did not want this court case to happen and that, if he would apologise and give me employment somewhere else in his large group of companies, then I would drop the whole thing.
In the event, my action against that publicly quoted company must have cost over £2million and not one employee was effectively punished.
I believe the time has come for me to use this experience and help fight for honesty and integrity in our so-called free-market economy and develop strategies to ensure to ensure the free market forces work in the best interests of all of us, not just line the pockets of the few.
