NEW: Ousted Post Office boss Henry Staunton has unearthed the memo at the heart of his row with Kemi Badenoch. It says that on Jan 5, 2023, the top civil servant at BEIS told him to “hobble” into the election and not to “rip off the band aid” financially.
Sarah Munby allegedly told Staunton that “politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality” and that “now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues”.
A big moment in this story. It raises serious questions over Badenoch’s judgement in branding Staunton a liar.
Pleased to say from August I'll become associate editor of The Sunday Times, with
@ArmitageJim
joining as business editor and
@JonLYeomans
as deputy business editor. I'll continue to write the Agenda column in the business section and look forward to working closely with them.
Excited and honoured to say I'll be the next editor of
@ST_Business
, following in the footsteps of
@IainDey
. I'm looking forward to delivering more of the investigations, features and scoops our readers love. Start date is 1 July.
Excited to announce that I’ve sold the TV drama rights for Damaged Goods, my book on Philip Green, to Mammoth Screen, the guys who made Poldark. Hopefully PG will keep his top on in this one. Thanks to
@tobymundy
for his help
Staunton allegedly replied to Munby that the Post Office’s problems revolved around “poor decisions made many years ago” on Horizon.
Staunton has shared the note with The Times.
I should add that Munby is understood to deny telling Staunton to stall on compensation.
Today’s column: It’s too late for Thames’s owners to cry over spilt water.
Equity is there to bear losses as well as gains. They should stump up or suck it up.
Lovely guest column from
@JamesTCobbler
on the importance of caring for people in business.
"Creating a culture of kindness isn’t just about spending money. Many of our most important measures don’t cost a penny."
Today's
@emmagannon
column:
"It’s time to draw the line. Make all and any unpaid work illegal. Pay interns. Respect them. Hire diversely. They might be running the company one day."
Excited to announce that my “personal vanity project”, as a certain someone calls it, is nearing fruition. “Damaged Goods: The Inside Story of Sir Philip Green, the Collapse of BHS and the Death of the High Street” will be published by Penguin Portfolio in June - warts and all.
Gov’t not backing down. A source: “The long-standing issues around Post Offices finances are a matter of public record and do not include postmaster compensation, which is being fully funded by gov’t. Henry Staunton is either confused or deliberately mixing up the two issues.”
NEW: Post Office boss Nick Read repeatedly threatened to quit unless he was given a £1m pay deal. Told colleagues "my patience has expired" and said he was "prepared to make a drama" by suing. Insiders thought it was a big distraction.
With
@HarryYorke1
After a year of work, it’s here: the Sunday Times magazine is the first to serialise my new book investigating the truth behind Sir Philip Green’s story
Today’s Sunday Times splash: Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man and a vocal Brexit advocate, has been planning to take at least £1bn offshore tax-free:
As reported by The Sunday Times the weekend before last (and as denied by Arcadia), Sir Philip Green's Topshop retail empire is about to go into administration:
Very pleased to say that
@jilltreanor
will be joining the Sunday Times as City editor in January, working across a range of companies and sectors. Look forward to welcoming her!
Excited to announce three brilliant new hires:
@SamChambersDMC
from Bloomberg to cover retail,
@RMillardDM
from the Mail to cover energy/mining and
@Ben_Woods01
from the Telegraph to cover UK tech and media. Reinforcing the best team in Sunday business journalism.
Column from
@JamesTCobbler
:
"When the apprenticeship levy was announced in 2015, we hoped that the box-ticking would cease and we could use the levy to subsidise the training budget. Sadly, for us, it has become an expensive folly."
Guest column from
@JamesTCobbler
and his natty Etro jacket: "My chain has been overpaying business rates for years. Timpson shops in less glamorous locations have been subsidising global designer brands such as Chanel."
After a busy week, a belated announcement:
@iamliamkelly
becomes enterprise correspondent at
@ST_Business
in a well-deserved promotion.
@peterevans10
stays with us as senior business correspondent.
BBC Today programme
@BBCR4Today
is to lose its own business coverage with the brilliant
@dominicoc
under the reorganisation announced today.
This is a disaster for the programme and the BBC. If R4 is not going to hold the Governor of the Bank of England to account, who will?
There’s a nice circulatory to Asos’s possible acquisition of Topshop, as noted by
@JonathanEley
and others. Reminds me of this passage from my book
BREAKING: Steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta and financier Lex Greensill flouted borrowing rules by taking EIGHT separate £50m taxpayer-backed Covid loans.
By
@jcollingridgeST
, the journalist who's led on the story of this growing scandal from day one.
I asked Philip Green about various allegations of bullying when I was publishing my book on him. One of the verbatim responses: "If you employ 40,000 or 50,000 people, you have arguments from time to time. That’s how it goes.”
Excited to welcome the talented and witty
@emmagannon
as a columnist in
@ST_Business
from this Sunday. Looking forward to some engaging and provocative pieces in the weeks and months to come!
This is pretty exciting: Damaged Goods is climbing the Amazon bestsellers list. Currently at
#43
! Doesn’t break down regional rankings so not sure how it’s doing in Monaco
So, after almost 48 hours, Sir Philip Green has found his Nokia. There's a lot I could say, but for now I'll limit myself to the official line: "This is a public interest story, which The Sunday Times investigated thoroughly before publication, and we stand by our report."
BIG SUNDAY TIMES SCOOP: John Lewis is considering partially demutualising so it can bring in funding from the outside for the first time in its 159-year history. Would be a huge moment for the retail industry, and British business.
W/
@SamChambersDMC
:
How Beulah, the “ethical” fashion brand favoured by the Duchess of Cambridge, left £900,000 worth of creditors out in the cold while the society founders bought it back on the cheap. Cameo turn by
@RobertEJWatts
Breaking: Accountancy challenger BDO is to return the £4.1m of furlough funds it used in full before Christmas after outcry over the £500,000-a-head pay for its partners. Scoop from
@HoskingTheTimes
I interviewed Johnny Boufarhat, the 26-year-old billionaire behind videoconferencing app Hopin. There's no office and he's only met 12 of his 500 staff.
Ousted Post Office chairman Henry Staunton is going down with all guns blazing. In an exclusive interview he claims to The Sunday Times that he was told by a senior civil servant to stall on compensation to Horizon victims and “limp into the election”.
Great first column from Julian Richer, who’s stepping into the shoes vacated by the mighty
@JamesTCobbler
: Why customers and staff should be like your children - treated equally
Moving and shameful story from
@sabahmeddings
of how the Post Office wrongly prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters after an IT failure, then refused to compensate them for years:
Intrigued to read the Telegraph’s
#MeToo
stories about a well-known businessman over the past couple of days. Surely only a matter of time before someone reveals his identity under parliamentary privilege
House of Fraser’s collapse is terrible news for the 17,500 staff but also the wider retail industry. The administrators are bound to trash the market by discounting stock to get it moving. Impossible to judge the Chinese owner Yuan Yafei too harshly.
Column from
@JamesTCobbler
:
"The culture of happiness can’t just be switched on when the surveys are about to be sent out. It’s a complex thing that takes a long time to build and a short time to destroy."
BIG SUNDAY TIMES SCOOP: Unilever has tabled an unsolicited bid for Glaxo Smith Kline's consumer goods empire worth roughly £50bn. Rejected by Glaxo board and JV partner Pfizer as too cheap towards end of last year. Full story online with
@sabahmeddings
Three years ago when we wrote this, Green and his PR minders rubbished the idea that Arcadia could go the way of BHS. Those three years have gone by pretty quickly.
The only place you'll read the full inside story of what's happened at Patisserie Valerie today is The Sunday Times -
@LukeJohnsonRCP
speaks to us exclusively. "The most harrowing week of my life":
Breaking: The competition watchdog has launched an investigation into a meeting in a car park between JD Sports boss Peter Cowgill and his opposite number at Footasylum that may have broken CMA rules. It was captured on video. All parties deny wrongdoing
Stem the tide. Protect the economy. Save jobs.
Column for the main part of
@thesundaytimes
: Johnson and Sunak must plot the quickest way possible out of this shutdown and then vow never to do it again.
Outgoing BP chief executive Bob Dudley says campaigners are "oversimplifying" the climate change crisis and warns the world will "not even come close" to replacing fossil fuels with renewables in the next two decades:
Congratulations to
@jcollingridgeST
, who has just been formally anointed deputy editor of The Sunday Times business section. Well deserved! Look forward to many more train and plane scoops.
Scoop: Everyone has been trying to get hold of a copy of the FRC's report into BHS, PwC and Sir Philip Green. We got a copy on Friday. Here's what's in it:
Great to have a guest piece from
@sohear
on his 10 years covering fintech at TechCrunch:
"London’s fintech industry is now unrecognisable from a decade ago. I’m convinced the next big changes in consumer behaviour are happening elsewhere."
Revealed today: Leaked emails show Sir Philip Green asked HSBC and Goldman Sachs to sell his Arcadia Group retail empire. To put it politely, these "raise questions" over the fulsome denials he, Maitland and HSBC issued last week.
Nice to have a few stories about retailers doing well rather than going bust in today's paper, including Seasalt, the Cornish fashion brand where sales are up 29%. Via
@peterevans10
:
Delighted to have won the Sunday Times newsroom Grand National sweepstake using £1 borrowed from
@JonLYeomans
(his “Aldi trolley pound”). A little leverage can go a long way…
Thanks too to resident bookie
@beckymbarrow
Nice to come back to
@thesundaytimes
with a scoopette in tomorrow’s paper - a rare interview with Bernard Lewis, 91 year old founder of River Island. He still works five or six days a week. Spoiler: he’s quite a humble guy
Sanjeev Gupta's rise was enabled by a crony alliance of sellers like Tata, politicians like Nicola Sturgeon, yield-hungry investors like GAM and greedy hangers-on like David Cameron. It suited them in the short term.
Their silence now is deafening.
Sunday Times scoop: Private equity giant CVC, backer of Six Nations rugby and RAC roadside rescue, is planning a multi-billion-pound stock market float with advisers at Goldman Sachs. Follows the successful listing of UK rival Bridgepoint. Full story online shortly.
Pleased to say I'll be writing some guest columns for
@reactproperty
, which has been cutting a dash in the property world. In the first I look at whether Landsec and British Land should shake themselves up by splitting off their development businesses: