It’s time to root out toxic Tony Danker and his creepy cronies, the old boys’ network must be dismantled
YOU can tell a lot about a person by their reaction when they are told it’s time to go.
And Tony Danker, who was dismissed as director-general of the Confederation of British Industry after allegations of misconduct, didn’t exactly cover himself in glory this week.
Rather than just accept the fact that it was time to go, he embarked on a bit of a bizarre comms blitz to defend himself.
Dripping with self-pity, he summoned his best cliches when he told the BBC: “I’ve been around the block, I know the way the world works. But it’s so clear — I’ve been made the fall guy.”
He moaned that his reputation has been “totally destroyed” because, as a result of his sacking, his name has been wrongly associated with separate allegations, by more than a dozen women, of serious sexual misconduct at the CBI before he joined.
The allegations led to a mass exodus from the CBI, with more than 50 leading businesses including John Lewis, BMW and Tesco pulling out, and the group suspending its operations until June.
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So, if this intolerable behaviour by senior CBI figures was rife before Tony took over, what exactly was the £376,000-a-year director-general doing to change the obviously toxic culture there?
It seems he was trawling the private Instagram accounts of junior members of staff, messaging some 200 individuals to “build rapport”, inviting some to send him family pictures and generally making a number of staff queasy with his messages.
According to Brian McBride, president of the CBI, Danker was being “selective” with his account of the allegations against him and was given his marching orders.
Tony apparently also forgot to mention that the majority of colleagues he invited to a select Christmas karaoke party in 2021 were women under the age of 35.
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The bottom line is that asking multiple younger and more junior women out for drinks and karaoke, and sliding into their Insta accounts, is not boss behaviour.
At 51, the father-of-two should be young enough to know the rules and boundaries of the modern office.
But rather than accept that he had behaved badly, he appears to be in a froth of self-righteous indignation that he was dismissed simply for making staff feel “uncomfortable” — as if having a creepy boss should still be seen as a rite of passage for young women in the workplace.
SORDID REVELATIONS
The fact that other men at the CBI might have behaved even more badly is no defence, but in some ways this case is indeed a red herring.
What the whole episode has done is to lift a rock to reveal an appalling, misogynistic culture at the organisation which claims to represent 190,000 British companies and which bills itself as “The voice of business”.
If more than a dozen women have said they have been victims of serious sexual misconduct in a workplace then that often means there are dozens more who haven’t felt able to speak up, which is horrific.
Unfortunately, the sordid revelations about the CBI are just the latest to engulf important institutions, including the Met Police and the Fire and Rescue Service, where misogyny, sexism and racism are said to be rife.
Toxic environments won’t fix themselves. Organisations like the CBI, founded on the old boys’ network, need to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up — preferably by a team of both women and men who can create a culture of equality.
In the wake of Tony Danker’s departure and the raft of further damaging allegations miring the CBI, three other members of staff have been suspended and its board has promised a “root and branch” review of its culture.
It is the very least its business clients should expect before the organisation can once more claim to speak for British companies.
Keir crime cave in
ELEVEN years after committing despicable attacks on teenage girls, rapist Fabian Henry still hasn’t been deported to Jamaica.
It seems the large part of the hold-up is thanks to Sir Keir Starmer who, along with other politicians, opposed a flight to send him home.
Henry was jailed for attacking a 17-year-old girl twice and for abducting and raping a 15-year-old.
He was among 25 Jamaican nationals taken off a February 2020 deportation flight at the last minute, after the Labour leader signed a letter demanding the cancellation of “all further deportations”.
And so he is still with us. Thanks for that, Keir!
PM Rishi Sunak hit the nail on the head when he referred to him at PMQs as “Sir Softy”.
Starmer is so soft I fear crime levels would soar under a Labour government – which really is the last thing we need.
Strike is sick
MOST of us have enormous sympathy for doctors and nurses working in the NHS.
But within minutes of RCN nurses rejecting a five per cent pay offer, doctors were pushing to co-ordinate strikes.
A post on an online junior doctors’ forum read: “We can co-ordinate strikes and really disrupt, and we won’t have the, ‘Well, the nurses accepted five per cent, do you think you’re better than nurses?’ stick to be beaten with.”
This is morally wrong – and would cause havoc, delays to already-long waiting lists and needless deaths.
I understand the idea of a strike is to make a point, but to co-ordinate it with the sole motive of causing maximum harm to people in need is just plain nasty.
Less is more for bikini beauty Demi
I’VE got more fabric in my napkin than in the extremely itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny bikini that Demi Moore wore in recent Instagram pics.
But, oh boy, doesn’t she look great?
And, as they say, if you’ve got it then you might as well flaunt it.
I know I would.
Win for Suella
I AM very glad to hear that Strasbourg judges’ ability to block Rwanda removals flights will be overridden by new UK laws.
It’s absolutely right that Home Secretary Suella Braverman is able to disregard the European Court of Human Rights’ attempts to obstruct deportations.
The Home Office will introduce amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill to allow the Home Secretary to ignore European judges’ “pyjama injunctions” – so-called as they are granted so late.
About time.
HOW does this one work, then?
A new report says Chinese researchers may have begun developing two Covid vaccines in November 2019, just before the official start of the outbreak.
A 300-page document compiled by the US Senate suggests Chinese researchers started work on a vaccine programme long before most of the world had heard of this particular coronavirus.
But the most shocking part of the report is that it concludes the pandemic most likely came from a lab leak and was the result of a “research-related incident” in Wuhan.
It’s vital that we know for sure how Covid began in order to prevent similar outbreaks in the future.
If it was developed in a lab then China must be held responsible.
Rachel attack is the pits
ISN’T it funny how divided the world can be over a little bit of body hair?
Actress Rachel McAdams was branded “nasty”, “tasteless” and “gross” for merely posing for a photoshoot with a bit of under-arm fuzz.
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She responded by saying that “looking your best” is “different for everyone” – which is true.
But the real point is this: her body, her choice.