Philip Green will be remembered as a nasty stain on capitalism

There really isn’t much left to be said about Sir Philip Green as his Arcadia fashion empire collapses into administration, taking the Debenhams chain down with it, unless a new rescuer steps in. An aggressive rag-trade wheeler-dealer since he started selling cheap jeans in the 1970s, Green was also once regarded as a brilliant merchandiser — until, it seems, he got too rich to bother keeping up with online competitors such as Asos, rising brands such as Zara and price-slashers such as Primark.

So he won’t be remembered for his fashion sense — as the era’s other trouble-prone ‘King of the High Street’, George Davies of Next and Per Una, might be. Nor will Green ever be given much credit for grudgingly agreeing to pay £363 million to bolster the bombed-out pension fund of BHS, two years after he tried to relieve himself of that potential burden by selling the store group for £1 to the former bankrupt (now convicted tax evader) Dominic Chappell.