Carillion

McDonnell doesn’t like big businesses either durhamjen
So you are in good company there ( Marxist company.)
Too many random bloggers out there, I avoid looking at links to them.

There has to be a solution somehow, Primrose, even if it is somewhere between Murphy's proposal and the current situation.

It seems to me that big businesses have all the cards marked in their favour and it is the SMEs that suffer.

Perhaps there should be some differentiation between small privately owned businesses, where the owners are carrying all the risk, and the large companies whose owners are 'the shareholders' who, in the main, have very little interest in how the company is actually run so long as the dividends keep rolling in and in which no individual (s) carries all the risk.

Do you have any ideas?

There is legislation at the moment to hold directors of public and private limited companies to account. I don't know if the bosses at Carillion will be prosecuted or what the outcome of that would be. Until there's a full analysis of everything that happened, my view is that we don't have a full understanding of the problem, so this is not the time to suggest changes. Find out what actually happened and put all the information into the public domain.

It's never easy to pass laws to force people to behave in a responsible way, in business or in life.

The problem is that most small business owners are extremely conscientious and we really don’t need additional legislation to “keep us in check”. My DH and I always put our employees, customers and creditors first and often go months without wages when things are tight. We gave been very close to the edge on two occasions ( both caused by bigger companies going bust) when to be honest we should have pulled the plug and walked away but we’re not those kind of people . I refuse to believe that we are the exception .

There would be more chance of me being taken to task over missing a payment of £100 to HMRC than there would be of Carillion bosses missing payments of £100,000 or more .

I'm not suggesting that SMEs need to be 'kept in check'; it's the large companies that appear to need better regulation.

SMEs clearly need more protection. Your own example surely shows us that large companies are more of a problem, gillybob

There would be more chance of me being taken to task over missing a payment of £100 to HMRC

Well, there you go! It's a ridiculous situation...

This 'It isn't necessary to endure hardship to know what is right.' - absolutely and totally.
You're not gillybob

Small business owners in the main have pride in their business, what they have built up and know all their workforce personally and therefore value them.

Bosses of larger businesses can be remote and detached from what is going on and what is happening with their workforce, unfortunately ricocheting right down the supply chain.

sorry, that is the wrong link
I don';t know how that happened.

The link was this from gillybob's post:
^I refuse to believe that we are the exception .

Richard Murphy is not the originator of the idea of changing the parameters of limited liability:

"Limited liability, shareholder rights and the problem of corporate irresponsibility"
Paddy Ireland
Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 34, Issue 5, 1 September 2010, Pages 837–856, doi.org/10.1093/cje/ben040

Recognition of these manipulations and of the particular forms of corporate irresponsibility they have generated has recently led some commentators to call for the abandonment of limited liability, either in general (Campbell and Griffin, 2006) or in the specific context of parent-subsidiary relations (Blumberg, 1986; Muchlinski, 2007) and/or non-contractual corporate liabilities (Hansmann and Kraakman, 1991).

academic.oup.com/cje/article/34/5/837/1700679

Actually, if you've an hour to spare the whole paper I linked to above is well worth reading.

The author is a Professor of Corporate Law at Bristol Uni.

I've given it a quick scan read and yes, it's an interesting paper. Thanks for that Maizie, I will try and digest the contents and think it through.

www.internationaltaxreview.com/Article/3773447/Global-Tax-50-2017.html

Just some blogger?
9th most influential person on tax.
Anybody would think he had done something to you personally, Primrose.

So something he suggested in 2003 was agreed this year and then not implemented.
I'm less easily impressed, but I'm sure everyone who reads 'International Tax Revue' will find it highly exciting.

So something he suggested in 2003 was agreed this year and then not implemented.

It takes years to change public policy, as you ought to know, Primrose. I'm part of a group that has been campaigning to change something in education since 1989 at least. We actually got a 'result' in 2006 and official implementation in 2012.

Anyway, enough of fighting with dj. What about my Limited Liability paper?

Sorry - have been watching TV. Didn't know I needed to provide a written report by a deadline!

Have you read it and digested it yet Maizie or is it just homework for me?

No, I've had it hanging around for a while and found time to read it this afternoon. I think it's pertinent to the Carillion affair and to the general problems with corporations, wealth inequalities, unproductive 'investment' and lots more.

Watchdog orders DWP to publish secret reports on Atos and Capita PIP failings bit.ly/2F404YD

This may prove interesting. I wonder if they will be redacted?

Not to do with Carillion, but big business.

The public won against Murdoch.

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/23/rupert-murdoch-sky-bid-blocked-21st-century-fox-cma

"The ugly side of privatisation and outsourcing has been laid bare by the collapse of Carillion. While fat cat executives have taken action to protect their pensions and pay, the workers have been shafted. With a day’s notice, workers were told to not bother to turn up to work. These are workers with mortgages and families to feed, and the platitudes from this Government will not comfort them.

Make no mistake: this is an ideological obsession of this Government. We have got to the farcical point where Oxfordshire County Council is forced to put firefighters on standby to deliver food in our schools. Private capital has seen all the benefits, and the state has taken the burden of the collapse again. It is estimated that subcontractors will receive only 1p of every pound owed to them. They also have families to feed and bills to pay. What do the Government have to offer them? Nothing. They are obsessed and determined to push ahead with the privatisation and outsourcing of the £1.2 billion HS2 contract. There has been more privatisation and outsourcing in Ministry of Defence contracts, and in school projects. When will they ever learn? We privatised the reward and we nationalised failure. It is the absolute reverse of socialism.

This is a crisis of capitalism. Workers are treated with utter disdain in the pursuit of capital accumulation. This is an ideological issue. Outsourcing, not just by Carillion, has brought our state to its knees. Southern Rail, schools: it is time that this experiment was brought to an end. The smoke and mirrors of PFI and outsourcing are no longer there."

Is Lloyd Russell-Moyle your MP, whitewave?
He's good.

Where is that taken from, the Morning Star or jackofkent blog?
It’s not a crisis of capitalism at all, and nationalising everything in sight is not the answer either.
Some things can be outsourced and others brought ‘in house’ there is no reason that both cannot be done.

That’s the trouble with ideaology, the right wing want it all outsourced and the left wing want it all nationalised.
There is a centre way.

It’s not a crisis of capitalism at all,

I'm sure we'd all be very interested to know what makes you assert this so confidently lemon.

Good article Jen.

"Make no mistake: this is an ideological obsession of this Government."

The problem is that the Tories have been led by the nose by the same ideological obsessions since Thatcher and have been destroying the country every time they lied their way into power.