Bernard Ingham: Time for May and Trump to bring business fat cats to heel

Not that anybody born into the 20th century in Hebden Bridge was likely to gain the whole world, and that bastion of Nonconformism busily applied itself to saving their souls.

But it seems to me that Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are driven in their different ways by St Mark. Corbyn wishes to impose the misery of a socialist society upon us in the name of equality and the Prime Minister to rein in those whose soul has been lost to Mammon.

Heaven only knows what drives Donald Trump but he might do worse than follow former President Calvin Coolidge who said: “Civilisation and profits go hand in hand.”

It is difficult to argue that the West is fed up with capitalists, as distinct from politicians, when the USA has just inaugurated an arch buccaneer as its president.

But there are unmistakable signs of discontent in Britain when both Labour and Tory leaders feel that the system is not working for the ordinary man and his wife.

I doubt whether capitalism would ever look good in the eyes of Corbynistas but May knows what delivers the goods – she wants to moderate excess and companies to recognise and discharge their responsibilities to the nation.

Corbyn, the eternal dreamer who has made a comfortable living out of the taxpayer, wants to impose a maximum wage. It is a moot question why anyone cannot live well on the Prime Minister’s salary of virtually £150,000.

But such a ceiling would kill stone dead the animal spirits of entrepreneurs who, whether we like it or not, are mostly driven by money, even if some of them give a lot of it away when they have made their pile.

What I presume Theresa May is seeking, like some shareholders, is to stop the fat cats stuffing themselves ever more with cream they don’t need. If they had the wit they were born with, these felines would know that eight-digit salaries breed contempt in the lower orders that I occupy. They do capitalism no good whatsoever.

It is no good their arguing that they need such salaries to keep them in this country. If they have so little 
commitment to Britain, we would be better rid of them.

Capitalism would benefit enormously if everyone earning over £1m a year, including the bloated thespians who prance about our football fields, undertook to forgo a lump of their salary, bonuses, share options and promotional earnings and devoted the cash saved to cheaper products and paying better wages, especially at the bottom.

Soccer players might usefully specify that their contribution to the public weal should go to enabling fathers to afford to take their sons to matches. The price of tickets is ludicrous.

That, however, would not end discontent among those who recognise that it is capitalism, not socialism, that makes the world go round. They want companies to be seen to be paying their taxes – their dues to British society – instead of shipping their profits out to relative tax havens.

Companies should want to be accessible to the public instead of forcing them to go through a rigmarole of telephone options after a seemingly endless wait. Last week I was up to sixth in the queue as I sought to report my wife’s death.

We should clearly know what we are buying, especially when it comes to energy prices and insurance. Why on earth can’t energy companies price their supply simply? Dammit, there is nothing complicated about gas or electricity as products, or at least there wasn’t until that pestilence – the so-called environmentalist who wrecks land and seascapes – got to work on fossil fuels.

As for insurance, I asked my very astute carer last week to check on whether I was twice or three times over-insured. After a lot of telephone calls and much hanging on, she recommended that I cancel two policies.

And so it goes on. All this PR blah about valuing our custom is for the birds. If they valued our custom, they would set out to serve us.

Sooner or later a consumer movement will identify the worst offenders and vote, like Brexiteers, to have done with them. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?