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What Did John Lewis Expect When it Appointed a Career Civil Servant and Quangocrat?

by Will Jones
4 October 2023 11:21 AM

It’s hardly a surprise that someone who spent almost her entire career as a civil servant and quangocrat – sectors not known for workforce efficiency and customer service – didn’t know how to steer a major retailer through a challenging period of change. The only mystery is why anyone thought Sharon White – the first black person and woman to serve as Chairman of John Lewis, from which she has announced she is stepping down after just three years – was the right person to lead the company at this time. Did they have factors other than the best person for the job in mind, perhaps? Alex Brummer in the Mail reflects on her ill-fated tenure as it comes to an end.

The choice of elegant, accomplished economics guru Sharon White as Chairman of John Lewis always seemed slightly bizarre. Previous high street superstars – think Archie Norman at Marks & Spencer or Simon Wolfson at Next – have retail in their veins.

Dame Sharon is a high-minded Cambridge and UCL graduate who rose through the civil service to become a Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury before heading up media regulator Ofcom.

She might well have shopped in John Lewis when she took over in 2020 – the first woman at the top in the firm’s history – but her knowledge of the company’s inner workings probably didn’t go much further.

So it is sad, but no surprise, to hear she is throwing in the towel. She told the board yesterday that, after a disastrous reign at the store chain beloved of the well-heeled middle class, she will not seek a second term and will instead step down in February 2025.

White’s decision, after a single traumatic five-year term, is certain to be seen as recognition that it was a job beyond her competence. Bringing in outside finance to a partnership structure, in which the company is owned by a trust on behalf of its employees, and moving into new areas such as property (with plans to build 10,000 rental homes) will always be seen as mistakes.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Diversity hireJohn LewisMeritocracyRetailWokeWoke Corporation

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35 Comments
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago

Are you sure.? This is not what those nice people at the BBC have been telling me…

69
-1
John
John
2 years ago

Also, as carbon dioxide levels follow temperature by 500-1000 years, then if there’s a 1500 year temperature cycle then there’s a similar carbon dioxide level cycle with a phase difference of approximately +750 years, if the temperature is a sine wave then CO2 levels follow a cosine wave.

18
0
DanClarke
DanClarke
2 years ago

Those pushing net zero don’t want to know, climate change is a profitable venture. Already rich but wanting more, they’ve spent their lives in incomparable luxury and excessiveness, most people would have to live many lifetimes to reach a year of their self indulgence. Now they tell us, its for ‘our grandchildren’, (Rishi) and others, I’m sure his children won’t suffer, now, due to net zero, but billions will.

48
-1
A Y M
A Y M
2 years ago

Randall Carson discusses this very thing (along with some other fascinating subject on human history) on Joe Rogan.
Its long and seven years old, but worth a watch:

https://youtu.be/G0Cp7DrvNLQ

8
0
DomH75
DomH75
2 years ago

You only have to look at the way modern weather maps use orange, red and dark red smudged colour that resembles fire to realise we’re being played. I did semiotics as part of Film Studies A-Level 30 years ago and we were taught about how manipulation of image affects emotional reaction (it was, ironically enough, steeped in Marxist Critical Theory so I got to learn all their tricks).
It reeks of the Nudge Unit, whose existence isn’t even well known outside of the non-legacy media. The reason the legacy media isn’t going after the very dangerous nudge units and the violation of democracy their existence represents must be that they’ve been threatened or bought off in some way. State psy-ops units using brainwashing techniques on citizens ought to be front page news.

51
-1
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  DomH75

If their existence appeared anywhere at present, it would most likely be on GB News. Only a couple of years old, but it’s doing a good job at the moment.

25
-1
RW
RW
2 years ago

Anthropocene began with European colonisation and mass slavery

This must have been some time before the Greco-Persian wars, then, as the Greek city states erected colonies around the Mediterranean and generally, had masses of slaves. Sparta is a noteworthy example here as the city was ruled by a relatively small class of Dorians who were originally invaders and had turned the original population into a slave class (the helots). Except that slavery was obviously already common practice all over the world before the era of classical Greece.

The classic Greeks were also pretty racist: They believed their people to be divided into the races Aeolian, Acheans, Dorians and Ionians, all with certain hereditary traits, and summarily referred to all other peoples as barbarians (they considered to be below them).

Can some $deity please save us from all these uneducated morons with fancy titles who believe the history of mankind started when America was discovered and colonized?

Last edited 2 years ago by RW
24
0
RW
RW
2 years ago

Maslin has explained that the Anthropocene began with European colonisation and mass slavery.

Just in case this isn’t clear to someone: This ludicrous statement of (North-)American exceptionalism, ie, that something which has never before happened anywhere in the world occurred when Europeans started settling in America[*] and that this inherent evil is the cause why the planet is doomed unless something is done to overcome evil Europe is the final nail in the coffin of climate change. We can as well call that critical weather theory
and file it among all the other woke nonsense (some) people in the USA invented because they’re forever pissed off that they had to learn stuff in school (in the 1960s) they never cared about when all they really wanted to do is to go on holiday to interestingly exotic places and generally screw around as much as possible.

[*] An example: The bubonic plague came to Europe from Asia and killed as much as 80% of the population in some regions. Similar events have happened with other diseases, most of them earlier.

Last edited 2 years ago by RW
9
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

It looks like the bubonic plague is the model on which the Davos Deviants have based their planning. At least in terms of outcomes anyway.

9
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

That was a reference to Maslin’s article. A lot of American Indians died of various infectious diseases the Europeans brought with them which had become endemic among them. According to him this Depopulated (!!1) northern America and the (evil) Europeans than just occupied the essentially empty continent. That’s absolutely laughable, considering that the history of early Euroean settlements is one of constant warfare with the native population, with the latter more often than not in the much better position. Eg, one of the people who became victims of the Salem witch trials was (among other things) accused of being in league with the devil because he had miraculously survived a number of Indian attacks where most of the other settlers he had been living with perished.

It’s also absolutely not unheard of, that’s why I mentioned the black death which presumably originated in China, travelled along with the traders until it had reached Europe and then seriously decimated the European population. Stuff like this happens on this planet and it has happened at all times and to all people.

8
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

Could you please send a copy of this to Prince Charles. He assured us the other day that 3 days of very hot weather because the wind was blowing from the Sahara is proof that he’s right about climate change.

As for Maslin no longer lending his credibility by debating climate change scepticism, the obvious answer is “what credibility?” He’s a propagandist ….. a scientist will ALWAYS debate because science is NEVER settled.

6
0
psychedelia smith
psychedelia smith
1 year ago

This is a fantastic graph for those that haven’t seen it. It compares the media’s massively zoomed in representation of our recent warming to the same graph zoomed out and plotted it on a scale of daily human temperature experience across the world. Send this to anyone zombie you might know who’s ever used the term ‘climate emergency’..

Media climate emergency vs real world.png
0
0

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