Sauce for the Gander

What is it that allows the well-heeled to get away with it so often?
If you or I transcend the traffic code, the tax regulations, or even speak sharply to a Border Agency officer, we will be in trouble faster than you can say "Theresa May". If some overpaid director plunges a million customers into financial mire, do we hear the gaolers keys start to rattle? Do we blazes.

The Companies Act of 2006 made it a duty for all directors of quoted companies to pay heed to the interests of stakeholders such as staff, customers (you and me), suppliers, the community and the environment as well as shareholders. Is the imposition of zero-hours contracting in the interests of staff? Is gambling with deposits in order to swell bonuses in depositors' interests? Is growing the dividend in the interest of communities dependent on energy supplies? Think back over the 5 years since the financial crash and count if you can how many directors of banks, of energy companies, of any FTSE company have had their collars felt for anything, let alone concerning these wider accountabilities. The laws which most people obey exist so that nobody is above them so why is the answer to my question what it is [probably zero]?

Boards have been pathetic but so have Regulators. Look at the Coop/Flowers fiasco - an insider gets the nod from cronies without scrutiny. An employer is obliged these days to give honest references in respect of past employees. Were Fowler's references sought? Were they taken up? Were they honest as to his behaviour? Here too is one rule for the haves and another for the have lesses:  the poor benighted job seeker, having their cv pulled to bits and losing out because they may have some minor misdemeanour on their record from their teens; versus a major directorship with fiduciary responsibilities (let alone customers' money) being nodded through to someone wholly unqualified and unfit.

There is no need to legislate and hold enquiries. All that is needed is for directors to do what they are amply paid to do; for regulators to regulate; and for the laws to be applied as much to the powerful as they do to the rest of us - and a Government with backbone and teeth to ensure that all this is done. If a few directors ended up like Enron's, it might "encourager les autres".