Donald Macleod: Sir Philip shouldn’t be allowed to keep his title – it’s not fair

Sir Philip – can I ask you a question? How much did you shell out to become a knight, if keeping your much-maligned title set you back a stonking £363 million?

A couple of million? More? No? What less? Surely not!

If so and the price is right, I want one…

I really do fancy the idea of becoming an all-powerful knight of the realm.

I want to swap my toil and trouble for a title and denims for ermine robes.

Arise! Sir Donald Cameron MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Has a great sound to it, don’t you think?

On a serious note though, the astonishing news that Sir Philip has agreed a multimillion pound settlement with the Pensions Regulator which allowed him to keep his title is truly sickening.

It’s a real let-off after finally plugging the black hole in the BHS Pension Scheme. A fund he created for his ex-staff and promised to protect, but a fund he disowned and a hole he left unfilled when he sold BHS for a quid in 2015 to Dominic Chappell of Retail Acquisitions.

A deal that is so unjust, it makes a complete mockery of the justice system. Is this another clear cut case of one rule for the ‘haves’ and another entirely for the ‘have nots’?

I feel it’s another disgraceful belittling of our honours system and demeaning to those deserving few who have been recognised and rewarded by a grateful country.

Sir Philip apologised for a year of uncertainty that his ex-employees had to endure.

Yes, the amount he contributed – £363m plus another £20 million for expenses and costs associated with the deal – has been welcomed by most of his former employees.

And yes, it goes without saying that he is still one of the smartest retail businessmen in the UK, (when he’s here that is and not floating about the Aegean Sea) a very wealthy and clever chap whose successful empire includes Topshop, Burton, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins.

But serious questions over justice, or rather the lack of it and his real motives for paying up still remain. And here they are…

Firstly, why did he plug the gap now and not before BHS collapsed?

Secondly, why in all that time was he so evasive, so unrepentant and so uncaring about the pension plights of his former staff?

And finally, why was he allowed so much grace and so many favours in that time – afforded the costly and time-consuming luxury of being invited, not dragged along to government enquiries and committee meetings?

I just don’t understand that after so much denial, so much unnecessary and avoidable uncertainty, so many months spent in the sun dodging the media and the questions his ex-staff had for him, was he allowed to broker a deal with the regulator on his terms?

How was he allowed to keep his title, his assets and his billions?

Especially when the rest of us can be dragged in front of the beak for pocketing a finder’s keepers £20 or accidently forgetting to pay for a T-shirt in one of his stores. Why indeed.

It doesn’t seem fair, as many might regard it as the shoplifting crime of the century!