Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse: And Other Lessons From Modern Life

by David Mitchell

  The continued prevalence of Cynicism 1.0 is presumably one reason BP considered it politic to remove its chief executive, Tony Hayward, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The spill is an environmental disaster and the company still thinks it’s worth trying to appear as if it genuinely cares about that, and not just about the consequent financial and reputational cost. So heads must be seen to roll, even if Hayward’s was detached by a generous severance.

  The generosity is because no one at BP, and few unemotional external observers, holds him particularly responsible for the disaster. At worst, he’s deeply complicit in a corporate culture where such spills weren’t made as unlikely as they could have been – but that’s a long way short of it being directly his fault. At best, it was a very unfortunate accident and he’s blameless. He made some PR gaffes and seemed a bit callous, but no one has suggested that any of that either hurt or saved a single extra seabird.

  This makes the decision to axe him seem illogical. Businessmen of his seniority are incredibly well paid, and this gets justified by the claim that their acumen is so rare that they more than earn their wage. If this is true, surely BP can ill afford to lose a man who has ably run the firm since taking up his post in 2007 merely because his tenure coincided with an accident? If he was worth the money they were paying him, he will not be easily replaced.

  Yet he has been, and things will be fine, says BP. Apparently it wasn’t like trying to find another Andrew Flintoff or Tom Stoppard – people with amazing talents in their fields. It was more like replacing a good heart surgeon: Hayward’s skills are uncommon, but not unique. He isn’t, for example, the person who finds all the oil. That such executives know they’re over-remunerated is implicit in their “it was nice while it lasted” willingness to step aside when their luck, rather than their competence, runs out. Deep down they know they’re only human.

  But I doubt Michael O’Leary would go that quietly. Neither, for that matter, has Robert Mugabe.

  *

  The private sector is amazing, isn’t it? It’s easily the best sector. Apart from the voluntary sector, of course, which is inspiring and humbling and should give us all pause. But, obviously, it’s not really a proper sector. By which I mean it’s vital – perhaps even more vital than the others – in just the same way that the Paralympics is perhaps more important than the Olympics.

  But out of the two other sectors – which I’m certainly not going to call “the main two sectors” because that’s, I think, a really unimaginative way of looking at the vital voluntary sector – the private one has got to be the best, right? It’s like the free west, while the public sector is the Soviet Union but without the nuclear threat: all drab suits, grey offices, unattractive women and queues. You get a sense of concrete and drizzle, flares and puddles, all very 70s, whereas the private sector is dynamic and 80s. It’s much more Dynasty, more Howards’ Way, more using-proper-nouns-as-adjectives. It’s fax machines and swimming pools, shoulder pads and telling people where to stick it, in both professional and sexual contexts.

  Yes, people who work in the private sector must look at public sector workers in disbelief. “How did you end up there?” they must think. “What personality cocktail of laziness, self-loathing and intractable mediocrity would have led you to try to make your fortune (your incredibly modest fortune, albeit with overgenerous pension provision made possible only by tying the hands of enterprise) in that gloomy bureaucratic Mariana trench, far from the nourishing rays of the profit motive? How did the sorting hat of fate come to put you in life’s Hufflepuff (but with a touch of Slytherin thrown in when it comes to local government contracts)?”

  Those are the sort of questions that Carl Lygo, the chief executive of BPP, one of Britain’s only two run-for-profit universities, must have to bite his tongue to stop himself asking when talking to other educators. And he has been talking to them: he’s been discussing the possibility of running the business side of at least 10 publicly funded universities, going into “partnership” with them. They’d still make all the academic decisions, while BPP would deal with the admin. But isn’t this an uneven partnership? It lacks a shared aim. One half wants to run a good university, the other wants to make money. If a marriage is a partnership, isn’t this like getting hitched to a hooker?

  Or maybe it’s just paying for goods and services. As Lygo says: “Most universities are running at high costs and don’t properly utilise their buildings. The private sector is better at procurement, because they are keener at negotiating better prices.” That’s the key argument in favour of outsourcing and subcontracting and other expressions for an institution giving up roles it was constituted to fulfil: the public sector is so congenitally wasteful that a private company will always be able to undercut it – that the inherent public sector inefficiency equates to more than the profit the subcontractor takes.

  There are certainly many circumstances where this is true. There is little doubt that state funding changes an institution’s attitude to money and can increase its propensity for waste. But I think it’s a big jump from that observation to the current orthodoxy that the public sector’s flabby inefficiency and the private’s dynamic productivity are inevitable and universal – that the private sector possesses some kind of magic which, by dint of being paid by the state, no one in public service has access to; that the private sector is always brilliant and the public always useless.

  I suspect Lygo of subscribing to this view when he says: “We have got a lot of universities in the UK and not all are in a strong financial position … the private provider would add expertise in the back-office functions.” What expertise? Expertise in administering, say, Bristol University that the people currently administering Bristol University don’t possess but a new company that’s never done it before is going to be brimming with? Won’t they just employ the same people to do the job but pay them less or sack a few? Is that what he means by expertise?

  It’s not expertise, it’s ruthlessness, it’s the prioritisation of profit. What Lygo is offering people running universities is the opportunity to divest themselves of many of the problems inherent in their jobs. If you don’t want to take the tough decisions, he’s saying, if you doubt you’ve got the backbone to make the efficiency savings, then we’ll handle them for you. Pass your troubles on to those of us untroubled by conscience.

  Not only would this be a dereliction of the universities’ duty, it would also help perpetuate the myth of the private sector’s omnipotence and the public’s doltish money-burning idiocy.

  The private sector caused the credit crunch, the financial crisis, the global recession. The public sector bailed out the banks and brought the world back from the brink of ruin. When our railways were in public hands, they were shabby, unreliable and loss-making. In private hands, they still are, but public money ends up in the hands of shareholders and the tickets cost vastly more. The NHS is the most efficient health service among its peers despite having, up till now, much less private sector involvement than they do. The armed forces remain in the public sector and people seldom have cause to criticise their efficiency or commitment.

  Having said all that, Brent council is useless and the world glitters with the achievements of private enterprise: from smartphones to cappuccinos, from cheap fridges to full supermarkets, from Viagra to Vegas, the by-products of the profit drive have given hundreds of millions of us the lifestyles of emperors.

  And, of course, the private sector is usually better at making money but, as that’s its sole aim, it would be tragic if it weren’t. The aims of public bodies are more complex, varied and, usually, worthwhile. We mustn’t allow this necessary lack of single-mindedness to be mistaken for an inevitable lack of drive or focus.

  So, if those universities with which BPP have been negotiating feel they could make savings by outsourcing their back-office functions (which sounds like a euphemism for getting a colostomy bag) but would be unwilling to cut costs without being able to blame a pri
vate company, maybe that’s a sign that they’re the wrong savings. If not, and if failing to make such cuts jeopardises those institutions, I hope they’ll find the courage to reform themselves without holding hands with a profiteer.

  *

  There’s something fishy about Google’s motto, “Don’t Be Evil.” I’m not saying it’s controversial but it makes you think, “Why bring that up? Why have you suddenly put the subject of being evil on the agenda?” It’s suspicious in the same way as Ukip constantly pointing out how racist they’re not – which my colleague Charlie Brooker said on 10 O’Clock Live was “rather like someone who’s just moved in next door saying, ‘Hi, I’m Geoff, your non-dogging neighbour.’”

  But we mustn’t assume that the maxim was an attempt by executives to draw a line under some diabolical brainstorm in which the internet giant pulled itself back from the brink of green-lighting a scheme to grind our bones to make its bread. It could just as easily have come out of a discussion of the possibility of doing good. “Always do good”, “Try to do some good” or “Be good” might have been previous drafts of the motto, before they concluded that goodness was as impractical as malevolence was distasteful and decided on “Don’t Be Evil” as more realistic in a modern business environment. “Settling for one notch below altruism” is all the slogan really means.

  Still, I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies. And there’s no earthly reason why Google should do any good to anyone but itself – which is presumably why it pays so little tax. Although that’s not how Matt Brittin, Google’s head of sales in northern Europe, explained the situation to the House of Commons public accounts committee. “No one in the UK can execute transactions,” he said. He wasn’t bemoaning a lack of competence in British workers but proudly talking MPs through a tax dodge. Even though there are sales staff in Britain, “No money changes hands.” Nudge nudge, wink wink. Since the vast majority of Google’s £3.2bn of UK sales are routed through Ireland, the company paid only £6m in corporation tax. I’m not saying that’s necessarily evil, but it’s certainly not good.

  Amazon, in contrast, has never ruled out evil as part of its business plan, aspiring only to “Work hard. Have fun. Make history.” It sounds like an Apprentice contestant’s Twitter profile. And it has emerged that, despite £4.2bn of UK sales, the company paid only £2.4m in corporation tax in 2012. In the same year it received £2.5m in government grants. Which makes it a net benefits scrounger. In terms of sheer rapacious acquisitive nerve, I’d say that has made a little bit of history.

  Is there any point in my being angry about this? Everyone else already is. It feels like the interesting thing would be to come out in favour of it. After all, as the company’s spokesman proudly announced: “Amazon pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within.” So maybe it’s fine. Better than that, maybe it’s crazy and interesting. It’s a challenging artwork, but instead of oil paint or wood or clay or the excrement of the artist, it’s constructed out of pure injustice. A huge, malevolent sculpture of unfairness, groundbreaking and thought-provoking, reminding us of the iniquities of the natural world – a corporate metaphor for the worms that will one day eat all of our corpses.

  Like any really important work of art, it’s bound to upset a few people. Just as Banksy causes collateral damage to the neatness of walls, so Amazon’s masterpiece is a defacement of the public purse. But it’s not just some hooligan’s tag, like Google’s artless Irish scam. This shows an impish wit and a dark insight. What elevates Amazon’s activity is the fact that it applied for government grants. The elegance of that corporate choice is like the ambiguity of the Mona Lisa’s smile, the ruthlessness of Mike Tyson’s punch and the adaptability of the malaria virus combined. There is no point in criticising anyone or anything that can do that. They can only be admired or destroyed.

  The more you think about it, the more brilliant it is. At first glance, the deftness of securing government funding, which was intended to sustain and encourage marginal businesses, is rather pleasing. The thought of the thousands of small enterprises that could have been nourished and helped to survive by the cash Amazon has swallowed in one tax-cancelling mouthful is challenging and absorbing. It’s the monster that’s made myriad food parcels into its canapé.

  But it gets even better. If, for a second, you make the mistake of thinking that giving Amazon handouts might nevertheless help the UK – by incentivising the company to create jobs in Britain even if, for tax purposes, it exists only in Luxembourg – then think again. Because Amazon is the great job-killer. For every job it creates, more than one is destroyed on the high street. It’s the great annihilator of work and yet it’s been receiving a job-creation government subsidy. It doesn’t just absorb money that would be better spent creating employment elsewhere, it deploys it to decimate the chances of that employment.

  I understand that the changes in work and business patterns being caused by the internet are inevitable and irreversible. To try to stop them would be railing against the tide. Still, it’s amazing that Amazon, in an act of dazzling contempt, has persuaded the treasury actually to pump water into the rising sea.

  I don’t really think that these problems can be fixed. It’s the role of politicians to say that something must be done – with a sense of purpose if in power, and outrage if in opposition. But their jobs are too tenuous and short-lived, the international tax system too complex and the corporations too tenacious to stop this sort of thing happening. Loopholes will crop up by accident and, where they don’t, the intense and remorseless lobbying of the already astronomically wealthy will ensure that more are created.

  We can work ourselves up in impotent fury or – and this is a calmer way to live – just sit back and enjoy the majesty of a terrible thing done well. Amazon’s tax and grant arrangements are the beautiful ivory candlestick outlined by the silhouettes of British taxpayers’ incredulous faces. The politicians and public provide the backdrop of incompetence and rage in front of which huge companies can display their work of corporate perfection. As the mushroom cloud showed us decades ago, evil can be beautiful.

  *

  As you brushed your teeth this morning, what went through your mind? You may not be able to remember – it’s a brief process. But perhaps you considered the state of your toothbrush or worried about a wobbly filling; or contemplated the weather, the economy or how, by focusing on your reflected face in the mirror, a dried-up toothpaste splat on its surface unfocuses into two images so that, if you move your head to the right place, you can align them with your reflected eyes and it looks like you’ve turned into a white-irised zombie. That sort of thing.

  But if toothpaste company Crest is right, what many of you thought was: “God, this toothpaste is so boring! How can I endure these spirit-sapping seconds when there’s nothing about this dreary cleansing aid to divert me? I’m a daredevil and I need more!” The manufacturer’s response could not be more emphatic: “Daredevils, have we got a surprise for you …” it announces on the website for its new range. “It’s a whole new world of deliciousness for toothbrushes everywhere. And it’s ready to take your mouth on an exhilarating ride. Better buckle up.”

  What the company means by this is that it’s launching a new chocolate-flavoured toothpaste. That’s the extreme sport for the mouth it’s referring to above: it’s reaching out to daredevils who brush their teeth with chocolate. Except it’s not really chocolate, it just tastes of it. It’s actually a proper fluoride toothpaste, so the oral thrill-seekers the company is courting can buzz on the adrenaline rush – the peril junkie’s high – that dicing with decay by brushing your teeth with chocolate would doubtless give, but without actually having to endure the dental rot. Their pearly white teeth will still gleam amid the delicious brown foam after every thrilling scrub.

  Chocolate-flavour toothpaste sounds disgusting. I like chocolate but it’s the sort of thing I need to believe I’m removing from my teeth when I’m brushing them. It’s also,
of all foods, the most visually reminiscent of shit. And, if there’s one substance that I like to contemplate being in contact with my teeth while I brush them even less than chocolate, it’s that wasp to chocolate’s hoverfly, excrement. Associating any brown goo with tooth-brushing is perverse – it’s like launching a washing powder that makes clothes smell of gravy or an air freshener that disseminates the odour of a damp dog.

  Crest has addressed this, to an extent, and the toothpaste it’s launching is “Mint Chocolate Trek” rather than chocolate alone. Mint is a flavour which has worked with both toothpaste and chocolate in the past and so, Crest must think, is the ideal choice to bring the two together – like Liz Hurley organising a threesome with Hugh Grant and Shane Warne.

  Why they’ve used the word “trek” is lost on me – although the other two flavours in this new range are called “Vanilla Mint Spark” and “Lime Spearmint Zest”, which may be a clue: they were looking for a monosyllabic noun and “spark” and zest” were taken. I still don’t reckon that makes “trek” the obvious choice. One doesn’t like to think of cleaning one’s teeth as a “trek” – it sounds dull and arduous, and is a strange selection considering that this whole range was launched, according to Crest, in response to consumer feedback that toothpaste was boring. It’s for customers with “an adventurous spirit or a sweet tooth”. Some may even have two or three teeth.