Own goal over Sir Philip Green

Early last week the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee published a report about the collapse of BHS. I read the report. It doesn’t pull its punches about the conduct of Sir Philip Green. He may lose his Knighthood. Companies have a responsibility to make good deficits in their pension funds. After the 2012 valuation of the BHS fund, the best that Sir Philip offered was a 23 year recovery plan. As the report says, ‘8 years was the median at that time [for other schemes in deficit], while 95 percent of comparable schemes had a recovery plan of less than 17 years.’

The Jewish Chronicle on Friday had as its front page lead an opinion piece by Alex Brummer about the BHS Collapse. The Committee Report was thoroughly covered in the media last Monday and Alex’s article adds nothing to those analyses. The headline points to Alex’s ‘angle’:

Is Philip Green a Jewish businessman – or a businessman who happens to be Jewish?

‘It is quite encouraging’ writes Alex ‘that at a time when antisemitism has been a subject of concern because of the disgusting behaviour of some Labour Party extremists, not much has been made in the media of Sir Philip’s ethnic background …. It is unfortunate that several of Sir Philip’s associates are also prominent community members … Mike Sherwood of Goldman Sachs … Lord Grabiner QC … Olswang…’

Disingenuous or what….

Not much has been made in the media of the fact that these people are Jewish ………….. So the JC splashed it across their front page to score one of the most memorable ‘own goals’ ever …

And as for whether ‘Sir Philip is a Jewish businessman – or a businessman who happens to be Jewish’ I fail to see the difference, unless there is some kind of antisemitic innuendo in the phrase ‘Jewish businessman.’

Is this an absurd question – or a question that happens to be absurd? …