I was in London a few weeks ago, lucky enough to be staying in a hotel in Mayfair for the ITI’s annual General Meeting and Scientific Meeting.
It was one of those posh hotels where, as a guy, when you’re doing a pee you get to read the newspaper in front of you. As I read the newspaper I was interested to see that now Jeremy Corbyn was being accused of having suspicious personal financial situations with regards to various pension arrangements which were being called into question by the newspapers. This was off the back of David Cameron’s alleged involvement with the Panama tax scandal through his father’s company.
I had had a couple of drinks and had the opportunity to reflect on that while walking the long distance from the toilet back to where the meal was being held and it made me wonder about the difference between dishonesty and trying to survive the enormous complexity of today’s world.
For a start, a few points to consider:
- I have no idea about my Father’s financial situation or arrangements. I have some small insight into the fact that he’s not a multi-billionaire but I haven’t had long conversations with him regarding where all his assets lie and what his risk profile is. I am too busy chatting to him and having fun when I see him. This probably was the same for David Cameron to a large degree.
- Jeremy Corbyn has worked in many parts of public life and no doubt has had to transfer his pension from place to place and association to association depending on where he has worked geographically. Maybe somebody did that for him and helped him but maybe he has no real handle on what’s going on with his pension because he is too busy trying to be (I think) a decent politician.
- If you were the Prime Minister it you wouldn’t really have time to look into your Father’s financial arrangements. Maybe there is someone to do that for you but there are other things to worry about.
Most people don’t really know what their Sky TV bill is on a month by month basis and with the onset of contactless payments on a minute by minute basis people don’t know what they have in the bank. Because they can’t keep up with the complexity of the financial markets and their financial world it doesn’t mean they’re bent. Being dishonest is willfully trying to avoid paying tax, being dishonest is willfully breaking the law.
My wife and I had a long discussion about this some time ago when the ‘Take That scandal’ came out regarding investments they had made in off-shore companies and tax mitigation / avoidance schemes. Take That are musicians and yes, highly paid celebrities, but they just take on advice the right thing to do from the people that advise them and even though they sign a disclaimer to say that they understand the don’t. I have signed a thousand of these with my accountant, it’s interesting that he sends me a letter of engagement every year which I sign to say that I am entirely responsible for my accounts when I have no idea what’s in them. This is the point.. this is the rub. We have to sort out inability to deal with complexity from dishonesty. If you don’t report a radiograph in a set of dental notes you are not dishonest unless you willfully didn’t report it and tried to hide it. If a patient had a complication and you explained it to them and they didn’t understand but you thought they understood, you are not dishonest. It’s a complex interaction of many different things. If you didn’t write a letter to them to explain that you had explained that complication and then to explain what might happen due to the explanation of the complication you explained, it doesn’t mean you’re dishonest it just means it’s complicated.
Realistic people looking realistically at problems and conflict can decide whether somebody was decent or not. The next time you have a situation with somebody you know when you think they’re being dishonest first have a look at whether it’s just a degree of complexity.
Blog Post Number: 929
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