Chuck Feeney, Demise of the Celebrity, Lack of Sunlight, Dido Harding, Amazon

Chuck Feeney has achieved his lifetime ambition: giving away his entire $8bn (£6bn) fortune while he is still around to see the impact it has made.

Irish Immigrants
John Joseph Barker (1824-1904)
Photo Credit: Victoria  Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

For the past 38 years Feeney, an 89-year-old Irish American who made billions from the Duty Free Shoppers empire he co-founded in 1960, has been making endowments to charities and universities across the world with the goal of "striving for zero ... to give it all away". This week he achieved it. The Atlantic Philanthropies, a foundation he set up in secret in 1982 and to which he transferred most of his wealth, has finally run out of money.

... From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the global super rich: "To those wondering about giving while living: Try it, you'll like it."

... Feeney was influenced by Andrew Carnegie's 1889 essay The Gospel of Wealth, with its famous declaration that "the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor".

"I have always empathised with people who have it tough in life... and the world is full of people who don't get enough to eat."

He has lived a frugal lifestyle, not owning a car or a home, and only one pair of shoes. He was known for flying in economy class, even when members of his family and business subordinates would travel in business class on the same plane.

(Christopher) Oechsli, who has worked for Feeney for more than 30 years, said his boss had once tried to live a life of luxury but it didn't suit him. "He had nice places (homes) and nice things. He tried it on and it wasn't for him. The stories of his frugality are true: he does have a $10 Casio watch and carry his papers in a plastic bag, that is him. That's what he felt comfortable with, and that's really who Chuck has been."

...The son of immigrants from County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, he has donated $1.9bn to projects in Northern Ireland and in the Republic.

Feeney has four daughters and one son. All the children were instructed to work summers as waiters or chambermaids.

"He has made a reasonable provision for them [his children], but he did feel that his family should not be burdened with extraordinary sums," Oechsli said.

(Rupert Neate, The Guardian, 2020)

What an extraordinary man. In this consumer-driven age how refreshing to come across an individual who has such wisdom, empathy and generosity. 

Demise of the Celebrity

Oblivion Conquering Fame
Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
Photo Credit: Birmingham Museums Trust 

...Coronavirus has changed the way we think about the super rich and made us reconsider the jobs we value. When the economy is on the brink who wants to to watch someone idly showcasing their luxury lifestyle? And do we really watch or listen to long-established shows just for the presenter?

Financially challenged TV chiefs should embrace these changing moods - they would save a lot of money... It (The BBC) needs to understand that people have grown tired of the fame game.

...The BBC ought to be an authority on celeb culture. After all, it has squandered millions of licence-fee pounds on mega salaries for popular entertainment presenters over the past 20 years.

The gold rush for presenting "talent" reached its apogee in 2006 when Jonathan Ross signed a three-year deal worth £16.9m. That's £5.6m a year. It has been a long struggle to bring the salary bar down.

... "Celebrity Culture is Burning" reported The New York Times earlier this year, noting public revulsion as stars uploaded pictures of their mansion lockdowns. The reality TV star inside the White House could even be on his way, while Kim Kardashian's contribution to the election is to freeze her Facebook and Instagram accounts in protest at hateful social media.

One way or another the cult of celebrity seems to be losing its aura. Let's hope so.

(Ian Burrell, The i, 2020)

If coronavirus has changed any person's mind regarding the nonsense of celebrity culture then that should be celebrated.

Reconsidering the jobs we value because of the virus is all well and good. But what we need is a radical review of what a job is worth. How does it contribute to the common good? A clap and a cheer for care workers and nurses do not increase their salaries.

Is any person on this earth worth £5.6m a year? Is a Radio 2 presenter worth over £1.3 m a year? 

Lack of Sunlight

There are many reasons to despair about the coming winter but a lack of sunlight isn't one of them.

Sunlight through Grey Skies
Archibald Knox (1864-1933)`
Photo Credit: Manx National Heritage [CC BY-NC]

A new study has claimed that the long winter nights do not make us feel appreciably more depressed, so long as we already have a sunny disposition.

The findings will be controversial among psychologists, who have long maintained that a lack of sunshine leads to a range of changes in mood which in severe cases they term "seasonal affective disorder".

The Dutch research involved 5,282 people, who were asked about their moods at different points in the year. The study found that it was only among people already high in neuroticism - the tendency to experience negative emotions in response to stressors - that the end of summer sun had a correspondingly gloomy effect on mood. For the rest of those involved, there was barely a blip.

"The findings of this study do not support the widespread belief that seasons influence mood to a great extent," the researchers said in the journal Plos One.

... Punit Shah, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Bath, who was not involved in the study, said:

"People who are neurotic or people with anxiety or many anxious traits are particularly susceptible to several external factors influencing their mental functioning."

(Sophie Freeman, Tom Whipple, The Times, 2020)

Dido Harding

Dido
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Yale Center for British Art [Public Domain]

A document leaked to the Health Service Journal last week revealed that there is just one clinician or public health expert on the 15-strong executive committee of Dido Harding's NHS Test and Trace - but plenty of figures brought in from her own world of retail and commerce. The HSJ highlighted an astonishing lack of "current local public health expertise" on the committee.

Still, there's more to life than executive committees: Baroness Harding also has a senior adviser, Alex Birtles. Until last year Birtles worked at TalkTalk, where Harding was chief executive from 2010 to 2017. Birtles was regarded as "a hot-air blower... a talker, definitely not a doer, very hands-off." Dido loved her.

But never let it be said that Harding chooses cronies over people with relevant experience. Although Birtles may have no obvious "local public health expertise", her genes are surely ample qualification; she is the daughter of a former health secretary, Patricia Hewitt.

(Private Eye, No 1531, 2020)

Surely leading the testing programme should go to someone recruited on merit and who has extensive experience within the Health Service? Isn't Harding a Conservative peer who would be a most unlikely critic of the Government? Fourteen out of fifteen members on the NHS Test and Trace committee have no medical experience or expertise? Bananas.

*Michael Rosen, the children's writer spent six weeks on a ventilator with Covid-19. Here he comments on the NHS and the appointment of Dido Harding.

... Again, he becomes emotional as he talks about how nurses sat by his bed every night, kept a diary, praised him for coughing up secretions, urged him back to life, showed him the same care and love his family would do.

Yet he despises the government's hypocrisy - telling us to protect our health service while doing the opposite itself.

"The NHS has been targeted in two ways: underfunded during austerity and this nibbling away. Privatising."

He considers the appointment of the Tory peer Dido Harding to be corrupt and questions her expertise to run test and trace.

"The idea that you'd do it with a bunch of cowboys who've run a mobile phone company badly, you just think: 'Jesus'."

He says it runs counter to everything the Conservatives preach about education and meritocracy.

"The old theory was that you build up expertise by doing GCSEs, A-levels, degree, MSc, PhD and then you might rise to the top - and they might call on you to run an emergency like a pandemic - but no, because Dido will get in there instead."...

(Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, 2020)

*The former chief executive of Sainsbury's is to take over as testing director at NHS Test and Trace.

Mike Coupe, who retired as chief executive of Sainsbury's at the end of May, is set to replace Sarah-Jane Marsh, who is returning to her post as chief executive of Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust.

Baroness Dido Harding, who runs NHS Test and Trace and is interim executive chairwoman of the National Institute for Health Protection, said in an email to staff, seen by the Health Service Journal, that Mr Coupe "will bring a wealth of experience in large scale supply chains, logistics and digital transformation".

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Health Secretary, tweeted:

"How about putting those trained in actual infectious disease control in charge of Test and Trace? Local public health teams should be leading contact tracing."

(Jane Kirby, The i, 2020)

Amazon

Duty Paid
Ralph Hedley (1848-1913)
Photo Credit: Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens [CC BY-NC]

Amazon will not be affected by the new digital services tax but small traders who use its online marketplace will be penalised, HMRC has admitted.

Ministers had claimed that the tax, announced in April, would make "global giants with profitable businesses in the UK pay their fair share towards supporting our public services".

In June Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said that the coronavirus crisis had made tech giants even "more powerful and more profitable" and that they needed "to pay their fair share of tax".

... Last night business groups accused HMRC of designing a tax that cemented Amazon's market dominance while failing to ensure that it paid its fair share. A senior tax lawyer described the digital services tax as a "political failure and economic failure".

Lord Leigh of Hurley, the Conservative peer and former party treasurer called for a rethink.

"This seems to me to be absolutely outrageous," he told the Lords. "It is clear that the UK government is not taxing Amazon properly and is allowing it to avoid tax on its own sales through the marketplace."

An international tax lawyer said:

"This is a really dumb tax. How much money is this tax collecting? Very little, about £500 million a year by 2023"...

(Oliver Wright, The Times, 2020)

Back to the drawing board. Isn't it truly amazing that national governments are unable to tax the tech giants properly and the tech giants are unwilling to co-operate? Perhaps democratic governments need to turn to anti-trust legislation. This, supposedly, is meant to protect consumers from predatory business practices and ensure fair competition.