The biggest victim of the failure of Thomas Cook is the worldly reputation of its eponymous creator – a sober cabinet-maker from Leicestershire whose pioneering and fantastically successful package tours used a network of temperance hotels.
His name is now synonymous with a company whose senior executives paid themselves millions while it crashed and burned. That there is something rotten with aspects of company law is obvious from the fact that taxpayers are going to be stung for up to £600 million to fly 150,000 stranded British holidaymakers home. Why is there no mechanism to claw back those millions paid in bonuses over the past decade while the business was developing the deep structural issues which led to today’s denouement? Why is the bill for repatriation being met by taxpayers rather than the company’s creditors? That is what would happen in many countries – a travel company would be allowed to continue trading until everyone was home.
But no, John McDonnell is wrong to call for Thomas Cook to be bailed out by the government.
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