Fair play, sanctity of contract and respect for human dignity are principles deeply embedded in British culture. P&O Ferries’ summary sacking of 800 workers in a pre-recorded Teams message so they could be replaced within hours by agency workers at allegedly half the cost offended all three. It was a callousness from which even 19th-century mill owners and ship owners shrank. Conservative ministers, given to see each principle through employers’ eyes as expendable if the circumstances so require, were roused to share the widespread outrage. The archbishop of Canterbury caught the public mood when he described the act as “inhumane and unethical”.
Both the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, wrote to the company accusing it of outrageous behaviour, offering the government no time to organise remedial action – managing to correct their originally wrongly addressed letter to P&O’s now departed chair with unusual alacrity. The mistake betrayed the distance between government and business that is part of the problem. Meanwhile, the case has been referred to the Insolvency Service to see if any law has been broken. If so, warns Kwarteng, the company could face an unlimited fine. This is not a case where ministers can take the side of the company, even one anxious to limit losses it says run at 100m a year.
However, P&O, a subsidiary of Dubai’s DP World, will have taken care to see that it remained on the right side of Britain...
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