BY STEWART SLATER
“Trinity’s Burning, Trinity’s Burning
Fetch the Engine, Fetch the Engine
Fire, Fire! Fire, Fire!
Pour on Petrol, Pour on Petrol”
The Gordouli, author and date unknown
Gregg Wallace, I think we can now be certain, was not an Oxford man. Had he been so, he would have known that the words above are abuse to be sung at a neighbouring college after abundant alcohol, not advice for those struggling with reputation management. For if his defence against the allegations about him started, like Baldrick’s poem, badly, it has similarly tailed off a bit in the middle, his decision to attack “middle-class women of a certain age”, going down about as well as any dish produced in my five-bloke student house would have if offered to the Masterchef judges. Particularly one served on the plates which, unwashed for over a week, we considered offering to the microbiology department…
As a lens on modern society, the affair (even at the current “he said, they said” stage) offers rich pickings. Does one have a right to be boorish at work? How much boorishness is reasonable grounds for complaint? Is the wall-to-wall coverage too much? (Probably, but since members of every profession find their peers’ activities fascinating, that people in the media should choose to talk about a person in the media is understandable). Does the PM’s spokesman really need to comment on the language of a here today and, in all likelihood, gone tomorrow TV presenter? Do celebrity shows (cf. Strictly…) have an inbuilt problem in taking people from near the top of one tree and putting them at the bottom of another which may have evolved its own, “punchier” way of doing things? Is Wallace the first high profile victim of the Reeves economy (if people felt richer, they might be out shopping instead of doomscrolling in search of his next mal mot…)? If middle-aged, middle-class women really were “fierce as f**k”, would they need to tell us?
I could go on. But I won’t. Because, with regards to Wallace’s comments (any physical actions would obviously be a different matter), this is really a question of manners. The basic dispute is that he thought that one type of behaviour was appropriate and other people did not. He is playing the role of Churchill at a New York dinner when he referred to chicken breast, his accusers that of the grande dame who pointed out that it was more appropriately termed “white meat”.
Instead, we shall focus on another angle: People knew.
For, according to this timeline by LBC, Emma Kennedy complained about him in 2012 by which time it appears to have been known to some that there was a “problem”. There were further complaints in 2014, 2017 (the first time some sanction may have been imposed, Wallace issuing an apology), 2018 and 2022. Rather than being a recent one-off, there was a pattern of behaviour dating back so far that a child born when concerns were first raised would now be in secondary school. Truly, the wheels of justice grind slow… While the occasional report about his behaviour had escaped into the world of the tabloids, it was only when the editorially independent BBC News investigated the story and released a report a few days ago that the dam truly broke and Wallace was forced to step back.
Gregg the greengrocer is, of course, not the only public figure recently enmeshed in scandal. His tribulations follow the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the Church’s failure, despite being aware of his activities, to bring the paedophile John Smyth to justice and were briefly interrupted when Sky News revealed that the then Transport Secretary had a (to be fair, fully spent) criminal conviction. This may have come as a surprise to her constituents, but it did not come as a surprise to the Labour Party (to whom she had disclosed it on selection) nor can it have surprised the Prime Minister who had known about it since at least 2020 when he appointed her to his Shadow Cabinet.
Still, at least she did the right thing and resigned promptly allowing attention to switch from the trivia of a woman in charge of nationalising the country’s railways to the far more pressing concern of what a man famed solely for his ability to eat might once have said.
These scandals share a common thread. For it was only when the behaviour became public that it became a problem. The Church, according to the Makin Review, engaged in an “active cover-up” of Smyth’s activities. Sir Keir Starmer was perfectly happy to have a convicted criminal in his cabinet as long as no-one knew about it (he may, to be fair, have thought she deserved a second chance just as he did Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn…). The BBC was quite happy to air Wallace’s programmes (and issue him the occasional warning) until he became front-page news.
“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future” said Oscar Wilde and it might be that we see in these episodes a pleasing sign that the quality of mercy still runs through public life. In the Church’s case, however, mercy to Smyth resulted in far from merciful treatment being meted out to others – one of his African victims blames its failure to act on what it knew for his abuse. As for the others, the flow appears to have slowed to a trickle so feeble as to suggest a severely diseased prostate. For a truly merciful and forgiving superior would defend their inferior when their misdeeds came to greater light. Those who truly believed in second chances would take steps to ensure those who needed them got them.
Instead, I think, we must reach a less congenial conclusion. Those at the top are far more interested in being perceived as being good than they are in being good. As long as their image is intact, their underlings have carte blanche to behave as they will. What matters is not the actions of underlings but the reputation of institutions and employers. Only when these is embarrassed, will a junior be punished. Appearance is all, reality is nil.
The Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you—is a thread running through most of the world’s major religions and philosophies. But for the Church, the government, and the BBC, the rule appears to be simpler: just don’t embarrass us.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.