Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Harrowby Hall on April 25, 2016, 06:13:58 AM
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So, another familiar name may disappear.
Does anyone else remember that a dozen years ago, Philip Green tried to buy Marks & Spencer which he planned to integrate it into BHS, which he had acquired a couple of years earlier? He claimed he could run the company more profitably than its then management.
M&S, it would seem, had a lucky escape.
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I don't think I've been in a BHS store for the best part of twenty five years. Anything that I might want to get in there I can find elsewhere, and usually better. It's one of those shops that doesn't seem to know who it's for.
There was a time when I thought M&S could end up solely as a food retailer; maybe it will still happen. When I used to post on Mumsnet every now and then a thread would start up just to point the finger and laugh at the latest collection. They definitely lost their way from the days when their reputation was for producing high quality basics at reasonable prices. And their delivery service is rubbish. i tried buying some school uniform from them and got a two week delivery time; Next delivered the next day. I suspect it's the loyalty of my parents generation that's kept them going. Where that leaves them in ten, twenty years I've no idea.
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Another victim of Gidiots policies...
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Following on from Rhiannon's comments above, I bought some stuff online from BHS three or four years ago and the delivery was late, wrong, and something was broken! I was really surprised. Agree Next are very efficient, I ordered something on Saturday and it was delivered on Sunday.
When I worked up in town I liked the BHS in Oxford Street very much, I also thought the one in Bromley was very fresh and pretty but I am talking about a few years ago, they've obviously 'gone off' somewhat judging by all the comments I heard on the radio today. It's a shame but there it is.
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Not really sure this can be laid at the doors of Osbourne. Yes, Green did a bit of asset stripping but he put in money well before Osbourne was about. And yes, the tax issue is there but it doesn't look to be the cause here, or entirely blameable on Osbourne. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last.
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I'm afraid Newsthump has it about right.
http://newsthump.com/2016/04/25/shock-as-awful-shop-closes/
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Harsh!
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Possibly. :)
Woolworths going shocked me far, far more but that was down to stupidity on the part of the management. Selling their real estate? Really? Now that is one I do miss. One great joy of my teenage years was popping into Woolies on a Saturday to buy some of the latest sounds and a Rimmel lippy.
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There is a bit of devil take the hindmost that is inherent in capitalism, and also the change in retail engagement makes that much harsher than it was. It may not all be good, but it's certainly not all to do with this govt or the last one.
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Possibly. :)
Woolworths going shocked me far, far more but that was down to stupidity on the part of the management. Selling their real estate? Really? Now that is one I do miss. One great joy of my teenage years was popping into Woolies on a Saturday to buy some of the latest sounds and a Rimmel lippy.
Real estate can be problematic if it is in the wrong place. But yes, I nearly wrote something about Woolies, which maintained an odd groove but that also lead to it holding ridiculous amounts of stock of things that would never sell.
And yet, as I was just noting a couple of weeks ago,it was once the power behind this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolworth_Building
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Possibly. :)
Woolworths going shocked me far, far more but that was down to stupidity on the part of the management. Selling their real estate? Really? Now that is one I do miss. One great joy of my teenage years was popping into Woolies on a Saturday to buy some of the latest sounds and a Rimmel lippy.
Same here!
... apart from the lippy. Mostly.
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There is a bit of devil take the hindmost that is inherent in capitalism, and also the change in retail engagement makes that much harsher than it was. It may not all be good, but it's certainly not all to do with this govt or the last one.
I expect Corbyn will want to nationalise them ::)
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I expect Corbyn will want to nationalise them ::)
as opposed to doing the same for the banks, which George and Dave supported? You can argue there is a sound reason for doing one and not the other, not that it's principle.
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as opposed to doing the same for the banks, which George and Dave supported? You can argue there is a sound reason for doing one and not the other, not that it's principle.
Sadly, we need the banks - but we seem to have quite a lot of clothing outlets.
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Sadly, we need the banks - but we seem to have quite a lot of clothing outlets.
We have quite a lot of banks. As I said you can make the argument, but pretending it's principle is ludicrous.
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We have quite a lot of banks. As I said you can make the argument, but pretending it's principle is ludicrous.
OK, we can't afford to prop-up failing clothing retailers - but we can't afford to let major banks fail.
Not a good situation I agree, but it's the way things are today.
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OK, we can't afford to prop-up failing clothing retailers - but we can't afford to let major banks fail.
Not a good situation I agree, but it's the way things are today.
Have you got evidence then to suggest that Jeremy Cornyn supports nationalizing BHS? Or was that just about say a possibility of supporting something else, and given you have accepted it has to be on a case by case basis, dependent on the effect, there is no principles objection?
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Have you got evidence then to suggest that Jeremy Cornyn supports nationalizing BHS? Or was that just about say a possibility of supporting something else, and given you have accepted it has to be on a case by case basis, dependent on the effect, there is no principles objection?
I have to confess that my initial posting was slightly 'tongue in cheek', but given his track record,I suspect that nationalising BHS would make perfect sense to Corbyn.
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I have to confess that my initial posting was slightly 'tongue in cheek', but given his track record,I suspect that nationalising BHS would make perfect sense to Corbyn.
Why? Do you have actual evidence of this, or just indulging in a caricature?
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Why? Do you have actual evidence of this, or just indulging in a caricature?
Anyone who would propose nationalising Tara Steel would nationalise anything!
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Anyone who would propose nationalising Tara Steel would nationalise anything!
Except he didn't argue for that but for the plant. (I know Tara is a typo but it sounds like an Avengers character). We have already established that the principle is not an issue. There's a reasonable argument that being able to build heavy industry requirements is a bit more significant than a clothes store.
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Except he didn't argue for that but for the plant. (I know Tara is a typo but it sounds like an Avengers character). We have already established that the principle is not an issue. There's a reasonable argument that being able to build heavy industry requirements is a bit more significant than a clothes store.
Had it been a high-tech specialised steel plant, there might be something to that argument, but it was just basic steel. The same stuff that most countries in the world can produce, most cheaper than we can.
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Had it been a high-tech specialised steel plant, there might be something to that argument, but it was just basic steel. The same stuff that most countries in the world can produce, most cheaper than we can.
Missing the question about not having steel producing available. As I have said, the concept is a given and you accept that, it just does not allow you to argue the caricature
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Missing the question about not having steel producing available.
Basic (not-specialist) steel is a commodity. If we can't produce it at a competitive price, why would anyone even think about propping-up a failing industry?
As I have said, the concept is a given and you accept that, it just does not allow you to argue the caricature
Corbyn lives up to the caricature perfectly - the Right love him because be validates all the Lefty Stereotypes.
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... Yes, Green did a bit of asset stripping ....
If I correctly understood comments I heard on the BBC1 Business News Review this morning at 5.45 (yes, I agree) Green took about £400m out of the BHS, let it fail and then sold it for £1 to another group of asset strippers who also found removable wealth locked in to the business.
These people then just walk away leaving 11,000 out of work and HM Treasury patching up the hole in the pension fund.
If losing his knighthood was good enough for Fred the Shred then I think its might also be good enough for a resident of Monaco.
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Possibly. :)
Woolworths going shocked me far, far more but that was down to stupidity on the part of the management. Selling their real estate? Really? Now that is one I do miss. One great joy of my teenage years was popping into Woolies on a Saturday to buy some of the latest sounds and a Rimmel lippy.
I loved shopping in Woolies too. :)
Sometimes girls, including myself, from the Ladies College we attended, would pop into the store during our 2 hr long lunch beak, much to the disapproval of our head mistress. She thought it too down market for us college gals! She took to standing outside Woolies to try to catch any girl in school uniform who had the temerity to break her rule. ;D
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No doubt she would have hauled you before the beak, floo.
Ah those were the days, we all loved Woolies.
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Woolies was terrible. It sold cheap tat and a limited range of music and books, also Pic 'n' Mix. Woolworths went out of business because it was a poor player in a market under severe pressure.
The high street retail sector is shrinking. Some of the players will lose out, it's a fact of life.
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Woolies was terrible. It sold cheap tat and a limited range of music and books, also Pic 'n' Mix. Woolworths went out of business because it was a poor player in a market under severe pressure.
The high street retail sector is shrinking. Some of the players will lose out, it's a fact of life.
You're all heart ::)
Thankfully Rhi, Brownie, Floo and I have happier memories of it.
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No doubt she would have hauled you before the beak, floo.
Ah those were the days, we all loved Woolies.
I liked Woolies too.
The trouble with BHS is it allowed people to think of it as a bit old fashioned, and as was pointed out earlier ,the generation that used it, is shrinking.
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Dear Shoppers,
Just something to throw into the mix, as life long Marks and Sparks fan, no longer sadly, they have stopped doing alterations and there range for skinny Peeps like myself is non existent, anyway, what I noticed as a long term M&S shopper, when the stories appeared about them using sweat shops their clothing took a visibly standard wise down turn, when I shop for clothing my first concern is quality, this stopped when M&S were caught using sweat shops, it seems to me that most big high st shops have only an eye on profit and not quality.
Dear Lapsed,
No comparison with Tata steel and a high st shop, we can step in and change the steel industry in this country, we need steel to build our infrastructure, it just needs a government with backbone to step in, do you know where we could find one? ::)
Gonnagle.
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Thankfully Rhi, Brownie, Floo and I have happier memories of it.
Why would anybody be thankful for your happier memories? They didn't stop the company from going tits up and a lot of people losing their jobs. Nostalgia doesn't pay the bills.
Perhaps, if the Woolworths management had paid more attention to the assessments of people like me instead of basking in the warm glow of childhoods long over, they might have saved the chain, although, if they had, it would probably have been at the expense of some other high street brand.
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And now Austin Reed, only a week after it was bought. No matter the inevitability of such, there are thousands of families, deeply worried about the future currently.
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Blimey! I had a brief holiday job in Austin Reed's offices when I was 15, they sacked me because I was always late and couldn't do much. Still, no hard feelings, they made decent clothes.
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No doubt she would have hauled you before the beak, floo.
Ah those were the days, we all loved Woolies.
I never got caught! ;D
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Woolworths did undoubtedly go downhill in later years and they couldn't - or didn't - compete with a lot of other stores who sold a bigger range and better. I do remember not long before they closed down going into a Woolies to buy a small kitchen thing, can't remember what, and they didn't have it! It was the sort of thing Woolworths always sold. I mentioned it to a couple of people at the time and they said they'd had the same experience.
However it was a lovely store in years gone by, great fun especially for kids and if we were away at the seaside we could always get some holiday stuff in there. Some Woolworths had cafes too. Ah well, those were the days.
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Yeah. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I had wondered whether anyone on this forum would be concerned about the ethical behaviour of asset strippers who enrich themselves at the cost of other people's employment and the coffers of the state.
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Mixed feelings HH.
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Yeah. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I had wondered whether anyone on this forum would be concerned about the ethical behaviour of asset strippers who enrich themselves at the cost of other people's employment and the coffers of the state.
Yes. As for ethical behaviour: it isn't.
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Whilst I've no objection to people making money, I feel distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of people cashing in on the misfortune of others. However if the firm was going South anyway....I really don't know.
It's not as if the demise of BHS is going to devastate a community. People will lose jobs, full and part time on the shop floor and in administration, but if they live in cities they are likely to get another job. It isn't the same as the closure of the mines or the steel works or shipyards where entire communities depended on them. I doubt BHS employees or their families feel as though they depend on BHS - it's just a job and their skills can be used elsewhere.
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Yeah. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I had wondered whether anyone on this forum would be concerned about the ethical behaviour of asset strippers who enrich themselves at the cost of other people's employment and the coffers of the state.
Phones4U is the poster boy for the effects of unethical asset stripping. A healthy mobile phone retailer was destroyed by an asset stripper and over a thousand people lost their jobs as a result.
Also, Manchester United. The Glazers bough Manchester United using loans that were taken on by the club itself leaving it with huge annual interest payments. I can't believe that that deal wasn't illegal.
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Whilst I've no objection to people making money, I feel distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of people cashing in on the misfortune of others. However if the firm was going South anyway....I really don't know.
I believe the biggest question is what happened to the BHS pension fund.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36143599
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I was wondering about that too, it would be the final straw for ex-employees to lose their pension. From your link, it looks as though they will be OK (no thanks to the owners of BHS but I doubt the pensioners will care as long as they get their money).
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I believe the biggest question is what happened to the BHS pension fund.
Big yacht....
Hole in pension fund....
Haven't we been here before?
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Big yacht....
Hole in pension fund....
Haven't we been here before?
I'd noticed that, HH.
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Big yacht....
Hole in pension fund....
Haven't we been here before?
Perhaps it's time for a one-way cruise to the Canary Islands?
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as opposed to doing the same for the banks, which George and Dave supported? You can argue there is a sound reason for doing one and not the other, not that it's principle.
The argument being - 'what would we do without banks' as opposed to 'what would we do without ... store'? Add whichever recently deceased store,chain as you feel inclined.
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Dear Lapsed,
No comparison with Tata steel and a high st shop, we can step in and change the steel industry in this country, we need steel to build our infrastructure, it just needs a government with backbone to step in, do you know where we could find one? ::)
Gonnagle.
OK, Gonners; people have been trying to change the steel industry in this country for 15 or 20 years - seemingly without success much of the time. The only time it has worked has been when someone has started producing specialist steels for different specific purposes - but I believe that there is a limit to the variety of specialised steels industry needs.
What would your method be?
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I believe the biggest question is what happened to the BHS pension fund.
Is the problem that nothing has been paid into it since Green purchased the group, or was there a 'Brown-like' raid on the fund by Green - or its subsequent owners?
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Dear Hopeless,
OK, Gonners; people have been trying to change the steel industry in this country for 15 or 20 years - seemingly without success much of the time. The only time it has worked has been when someone has started producing specialist steels for different specific purposes - but I believe that there is a limit to the variety of specialised steels industry needs.
I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.
Gonnagle.
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Dear Hopeless,
I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.
Gonnagle.
So we should save an uncompetitive industry out of charity, should we?
I think it would be better to concentrate on saving the people who formerly worked in the steel industry. We should support them while they find other more economically productive things to do.
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Dear Jeremyp,
So we should save an uncompetitive industry out of charity, should we?
Charity, such an emotive word, well no not charity, but if you want to use emotive words lets try empathy, compassion, what about walking a mile in another man's shoe's, or in the words of our glorious leader "we are all in it together" >:( >:(
I think it would be better to concentrate on saving the people who formerly worked in the steel industry. We should support them while they find other more economically productive things to do.
Ah the old model!! A man who has worked in the steel industry all his life buying a knitting machine and selling jumpers or turning his hand to embroidery and selling little hankies to tourists, why not just turn this little island into one big theme park for the tourists.
Trouble with the old model is it takes time, years sometimes decades, and we still have communities today trying to readjust after the mines closed, no, lets look at the steel industry and see if we can adapt it for the 21st century, ask the very people who work in the steel industry, maybe a way forward is using the old model and saving some of the steel plant.
But lets not just walk away, wash our hands of the steel industry, that would be the uncharitable thing to do.
Gonnagle.
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Dear Hopeless,
I am a simple soul ( some would say simple minded ) necessity is the mother of all inventions, the people whose jobs depend on the steel industry, the communities who depend on the steel industry, ask them.
Gonnagle.
Indeed.
You could take it one step further: ask the market.
Get Honda or Toyota or Nissan to build two sets of identical vehicles, one set from British-sourced steel and one from China-sourced steel. Then place a vehicle, bearing a price that reflects the cost of the steel used, from each set in dealers' show rooms.
Then let customers decide which vehicle they want to buy.