By Denis Sheehan, Publisher, H&C News: Government asks businesses to cut prices and help the cost of living crisis.
There is a scene in the film Wall Street where Bud Fox’s father Carl says in desperation to his son something along the lines of… “If you live long enough you get to see everything.” Fox senior was lamenting how far his son’s moral compass had diverted off course in his dealings with Gordon Gekko.
Reading the BBC News business section today reminded me of the scene, a report by Business reporter at BBC News Michael Race sets out how government is launching a marketing campaign asking businesses to cut prices to help with the cost of living crisis.
Like me possibly, on first reading you ask yourself, is that for real, could this government that seemingly knows no boundaries in insulting the intelligence of businesses really be asking that, now, amidst the cost of business crisis? The simple and rather unfortunate answer is yes.
The scheme is being championed by David Buttress, the former chief executive of Just Eat, who was recently appointed as the government’s Cost of Living Business Tsar by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
In a speech at the CBI on Monday Buttress first proposed the ad campaign to business leaders. A government source then told the BBC that businesses will not be handed any subsidies or funding in order to cut prices. But wait for it… in exchange for discounting prices businesses can add the campaign name and logo to their branding. The government intends to launch the campaign in early July.
The BBC’s government source also said that government will be rolling out an official name for the campaign with branding “shortly”.
I’m with Carl Fox, if you live long enough you really do get to see everything, good grief.
