Some years ago I was talking to Robin Cook about his strong support of Reprieve's work against the death penalty. He was then Foreign Secretary, and I congratulated him on the slogan that had been attributed to him: that henceforth Britain would have "an ethical foreign policy." Cook could be a little feisty, but I was taken back by the vehemence of his response. He had never, he insisted, used those words and he never would.
What a shame, I thought. Obviously even someone as moral as Cook had decided that Realpolitik could not handle doing the right thing.
It was thus with some pride that I learned last night that another Reprieve supporter, Michael Woodford, takes a different view. Woodford was, until very recently, the CEO of Olympus in Japan. He got sacked when, among other things, he raised questions about an enormous sum -- $687 million -- that went walkabout from the corporate ledger. It had been paid during the acquisition of a company called Gyrus to the Cayman Island bank account of a financial advice outfit called AXAM (which disappeared from the trade register three months later).
Olympus' slogan is "Your Vision, Our Future." What this means, we are told, is that "Olympus is pursuing innovation in order to become a company where all stakeholders, including shareholders, clients and employees, are proud of the Olympus brand." This appears to have been pure hypocrisy. Woodford's insistence that the company live up to its advertised standards quickly cost him a position that was hard-won, coming after thirty years' work with the company.
Some might say that Woodford's experience proves Cook's point. I beg to differ. I don't know how much Woodford made each year, though I do know he has given a sizeable cut of his salary to charity, including to Reprieve. To be sure, Woodford lost his job, but he'll soon get another one with a company that wants moral and effective leadership. (There are a few banks that ought to be picking up the phone to him right now.)
But Olympus lost far more; their refusal to own up to what they did immediately wiped at least $3.2 billion off the value of their shares, and any reputation for ethics they may have cherished went down the same tube. They may well continue losing in the legal and public relations battle over Woodford's wrongful termination.
Woodford should inspire others to corporate responsibility. It should also stir the largest corporation of them all, the British government, to revisit Robin Cook's spurned mantra. In the past ten years, we have squandered much of Britain's international goodwill on policies that have betrayed our national commitment to decency: whether it be our involvement in rendition, Theresa May's dedication to deporting every foreigner who owns a cat, or any number of other follies. Let's argue for ethical foreign policies, just as Michael Woodford did at Olympus. Eventually, people like him will keep their jobs, and the sleazy ones will lose out.