[Robin McAlpine Blog] It’s not the property empire, it’s the avarice that’s the problem

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It's not the property empire, it's the avarice that's the problem

I take no pleasure at all in writing this. I do not want to be critical of Roz Foyer. She has done some wonderful work at the STUC and I was regularly singing her praises for having seemed to make the STUC feel relevant again after a period where it felt like an afterthought. She is an articulate and informed communicator. She was a real asset.

That is why I was so terribly disappointed when news of her ‘property portfolio’ broke. It just looks like cynical hypocrisy. The STUC has not only decried second homes and the effect they have on housing affordability and supply, they have been critical of a wealth class which has continually taken more and more of a share of everyone else’s wealth.

Most of the focus on Foyer’s property has been about the strategic wisdom in preaching to others about what you don’t seem to practice yourself. And that is a very significant argument. But I think it misses another.

Because Foyer’s defence of the situation (in her weekend interview) and the defences mounted by others of her is that she is being criticised because she is a working class woman who has had success. What no-one is asking is the definition of success being used.

Or to put it another way, why is it that our ruling class (including much of our media ruling class) cannot see that it’s belief in its own right to untrammelled avarice could be the problem itself? The problem isn’t the property portfolio alone, it’s the culture of leadership and the loot it should bestow which enables the development of such a portfolio in the first place.

I get this sensation endlessly. I worked for 12 years as the political strategist of the university sector. One of the strangest features I’d see was on senior pay. There was a backlash against the excessive salaries of university principals when I was there and so they showed self-restraint in their pay rises as a result. Or they did until they didn’t.

Because what they all do is to show a little bit of restraint until their final year of employment (when they don’t care any more) and then ramp up their salaries way above inflation. Why? Because they’re all on final salary pensions. Take a 15 per cent pay rise in your last year and you get a 15 per cent boost to your income in perpetuity.

The way of the world is that the rest of us exist in pay structures where our salaries aren’t ‘put a finger in the air and pick the biggest number you think you can get away with’

What was so ludicrous about it was that I knew all the other principals and they would groan in frustration every time it happened. One retiring principal would make them all look bad by stuffing their pockets and they’d express frustration – and then they’d go on to do it themselves.

So what’s this dichotomy about? Why were these university leaders angry about salary gouging by a colleague yet felt they should go on and do it themselves? Again, it is the culture of leadership. If there was ever a time when the leader of an organisation did so purely as a duty and behaved honourably throughout, those days have long gone.

I’m not saying they don’t act honourably; I’m saying they have two siloed senses of themselves. In one of these silos is their belief that they are the right person for the job and it is their responsibility to act in the highest standards to promote the interests of the organisation because that attitude is what makes them believe they are the right person for the job.

Then there’s the other silo. In that silo they are also very much the right person for the job – but in this instance it means they are most certainly due their reward, like all the other leaders. They all have property portfolios. They all have future lucrative corporate Boards lined up to sit on. They get tax avoidance advice paid for by the institution. Because that’s what leaders get. Great wealth.

That is how it is possible to get the well-meaning, diligent crook. They do their job well, they work for the public good, they believe in public service. But then they also believe that when it is time to recommend names to the subcommittee that sets their pay, it is appropriate to appoint their pals with a nod and a wink because using your privileged bargaining power to maximise your wealth is the way of the world. For them.

Well let me tell you otherwise. The way of the world is that the rest of us exist in pay structures where our salaries aren’t ‘put a finger in the air and pick the biggest number you think you can get away with’. We don’t get to rig the committees that set our pay. We don’t get to decouple our pay from everyone else’s. We don’t get free tax avoidance advice. We don’t get any of it.

The idea that because you run something you are somehow a different species is a contagion that has grown out of control since the Lodsamoney Thatcher days. It is the entire philosophy of the US now – the only noble purpose in life is to pursue your own financial self interest. You can do other things on the side (I don’t know, run a government, sell cheap Chinese products, oversee a university), but those are not your true vocation.

The problem with this is that there is a glass ceiling that lies above the rest of us but the ruling classes are on the other side of it. We are constrained; they are unconstrained – and we can see them quite clearly. Why do they get the big bucks? Because they have the unpleasant task of explaining to the rest of us that we need to show wage restraint.

Or, in Roz Foyer’s case, she needs lots and lots of money to enable her to explain to other members of the ruling class what its like to be poor. Her frame of reference isn’t ‘workers’ but ‘CEO’. She is no longer a ‘first among equals’ representative of the workers, she is member of a different class of person.

Do our rulers all really need to be such a vanishingly small proportion of the population so dreadfully distance from the rest of us?

The trade unions have been at this for a very long time. Everyone knows that the workers’ tribunes look after themselves well. In fact everyone knows that everyone in the ruling classes is stuffing their pockets all the time – if they’re not inflating their salaries or paying themselves ludicrous sums to study MBAs at Harvard or organising basically-illegal golden goodbyes for themselves, they’re charging themselves Greggs prices for a private dinner anyone else would pay tens of thousands for.

It is best described by quoting Gore Vidal’s take on the founding myth of the United States – "I won’t blow the whistle on your scam if you don’t blow the whistle on mine". Is a salary that offers a comfortable life in a nice house with a decent retirement not enough for people any more? Are they really so focussed on the game of ‘intergenerational wealth transfer’ to guarantee that their offspring rule the world too?

Does Ms Foyer think that the fact she has transferred the ownership of one of the properties to her daughter makes it better and not worse? She’s not only used her position to her own advantage but to buy her children advantage too. Is that not everything that is wrong in our society and economy?

Yes, I can be sanctimonious about this because I left a well-paid career for a low-pay job running a left wing think tank. I did it because the sacrifice was the only way to make it possible, and frankly I just don’t care about stuff enough to sacrifice principles for wealth.

I’m sorry that this has taken such an emotional toll on Ros and I’m sorry it moved her to tears in that interview. But I went about four or five years wondering in dread how far into the month my family would get before our debit card was first rejected at the supermarket. That moment each month when I had to switch to a credit card I couldn’t pay off is a humiliation I will never forget.

I don’t want Ros Foyer to live like that. It was miserable. We’re doing a little better now (not my salary, just a little bit more income from my partner), and I never forget that the reason I made that sacrifice is because I truly believe others shouldn’t have to live like that and that my best contribution was to campaign accordingly. No-one should be humiliated for buying basic groceries for their kids.

But that doesn’t mean the only alternative is a top one per cent salary. And at £100k, you are way, way into the top one per cent. Do our rulers all really need to be such a vanishingly small proportion of the population so dreadfully distance from the rest of us?

There are two answers to that. The real answer is no they do not, they chose to because they can. Their own answer that they have a solemn duty to themselves to do so because they can. Yet somewhere in the gaping chasm between these two answers, public consent for democracy lies, broken and bleeding. The rich do what they can, the rest of us endure what we must.

Oh, but they want praise for it as well, because they really do want everything.

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