The boss of P&O ferries, Peter Hebblethwaite, was up before MPs. He sank. Hebblethwaite had been tugged into Westminster by the joint select committees for transport and business. Last week his company sacked 800 British staff and replaced them with cheaper foreign alternatives.
After the opening salvo from Darren Jones (Lab, Bristol North West), it was evident the good ship Hebblethwaite was heading for the sea bed. “When I was reading your biography,” Jones began, “it seemed pretty light on experience as a chief executive. Are you in this mess because you don’t know what you’re doing or are you just a shameless criminal?”
That rocked the quoits deck a bit. There were asthmatic whinnies from the public seats, where trade union reps and the Tory MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, were sitting.
Jones, a vegan, tore into Hebblethwaite as if he were a nut rissole cooked to glistening perfection in avocado oil. What a juicy specimen of the boss class: expensive suit, signet ring, chunky wristwatch and a suntanned, prosperous visage. One of life’s Excelsior Suite passengers.
How much was he paid — the answer was £325,000 a year — and would he accept a bonus now that he had swung the axe? He wobbled a bit on that one. There was also a tactical apology to ex-employees. Jones, dryly: “Why apologise after you’ve sacked them all?”
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Jesper Kristensen, chief operations bod at P&O’s parent company DP World, was giving evidence via dodgy Zoom call. Much safer.
Jones’s first question to him was: “Are you going to sack Mr Hebblethwaite for gross misconduct?”
Kristensen, in a metallic Nordic manner, basically replied: “You must be joking, we think he’s doing a cracking job canning these people.”
Memo to corporate PRs: if advising a nakedly capitalist client who has got into the political soup, advise them to field a bloodless Scandinavian via furry internet connection. At one point Kristensen’s screen froze altogether. V convenient!
Questioning passed to Andy McDonald (Lab, Middlesbrough), one of several committee members to be ill-shaven. A Scots Nat also had a spectacularly bloodshot eye. Wonderfully piratical.
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MPs craned forward in their seats, the better to examine Hebblethwaite, whose ears were pinkening. He gulped. Fiddled with the knot of his tie. One should not discount the sheer physical test of appearing before an angry parliamentary committee.
McDonald noted that DP World had blown £147 million on sponsoring a golf tournament. It had also paid $367 million in dividends to shareholders. Would such money not have been better spent on P&O staff?
Kristensen did some part-obscured hurdy-gurdying. Hebblethwaite insisted that all pensions liabilities would be honoured but his thumbs were by now twiddling faster than a propeller. He drank from a beaker. Taking on water, as we seafarers say.
Had he complied with the law about consultations? “There was absolutely no doubt we were required to consult the unions,” he declared. “We chose not to do so.”
This brought yelps of laughter. McDonald asked him if he drove at 90mph on a motorway because he felt the law did not apply to him. “You are morally bankrupt!” cried Simon Jupp (C, East Devon).
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Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) kept whipping his Covid mask on and off — Ben is the sort of person who would wear a Mae West in a punt.
Paul Howell (C, Sedgefield) told Hebblethwaite, or what was still visible of him above the waves, that P&O was now “seen as contemptible by all right-minded people”.
“We used a model that was internationally recognised,” wailed Hebblethwaite. This was a way of saying: “Everyone else hires cheap third-world matelots.” He conceded: “The brand has taken a hit.” A direct hit.
All that could later be seen of him was a few whorls of oil on the surface of the briny deeps, while on a distant horizon one could just make out the vanishing superstructure of the shrewder, colder Kristensen.
