All is not well in the boardroom of UK Plc

The UK cabinet is the most powerful boardroom in the UK.  Like all boardrooms it can be be the venue for bitter infighting as the recent attempted coup by Messrs Hoon and Hewitt neatly illustrates.

Just as in ordinary companies the electorate (the shareholders)  have to sit on the margins watching and waiting and biding their time.  Sometimes the desired result can be obtained by the machiavellian manoeuvering of the cabinet ministers (the directors) but more often the electorate (shareholders) must await an election (general meeting) in order to register their disapproval.

However, just as general meetings are often weighted against the chance of an average shareholder achieving a desired outcome, so are elections.  The first past the post electoral system in the UK allows a party without a numerical majority of the electorate (or even the votes cast) to gain a majority in Parliament and hence determine the board of directors of UK plc.

It is this disconnect between the ultimate power and the practical ability to wield that power that means that there will always be a place for the board level coup as an engine of change.

In board rooms as in the cabinet the old adage “he who wields the knife will not wear the crown” rings true and this undoubtedly accounts for the delayed responses from members of the cabinet to the plot.  Roll on the general meeting for UK Plc.

2 Comments

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  By Saffron, February 1, 2010 @ 10:59 pm

  Laughably tenuous analogy - I would start explaining the multitude of reasons why, but I don’t have time. Like the article all the same. Keep writing.

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  By Ed Weeks, February 18, 2010 @ 8:12 pm

  Agree is a bit of a feeble analogy. Have been too busy firefighting some actual shareholder disputes to concentrate on blog. Note to self - must improve standard of articles as it appears that somebody actually reads them.

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