Only a matter of days after London Mayor Boris Johnson used the f-word against Keith Vaz, Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson has used it to put down the chairman of Starbucks – but while Johnson was swearing in what he thought was a private telephone conversation, Mandelson was talking in front of the press at an official event.
Speaking on the American CNBC TV channel about how the credit crunch is affecting his business, Howard Schultz had said: "The place that concerns us the most is western Europe, and specifically the UK. The UK is in a spiral." He added that his biggest concerns were "unemployment, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, particularly in the UK, and I think consumer confidence, particularly in the UK, is very, very poor".
Eager to dispel the general feeling in the US that the UK economy is in extremely poor shape, Mandelson said on the same TV programme: "The UK is not spiralling, although I've noticed Starbucks is in a great deal of trouble – but that might be because of their over-expansion given the state of the market. So please don't project Starbucks on to the UK economy as a whole."
But it was when speaking at a diplomatic cocktail reception at the official residence of the British consul-general in New York that Mandelson really lost his cool. He said: "Why should I have this guy running down the country? Who the f*** is he?" Then he asked of Starbucks: "How the hell are they doing?"
The answer to this question is that Starbucks' profits fell by 69 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 and the company has announced that it is to close 300 outlets on top of 600 that shut last year. Total jobs lost could come to around 7000.
Worth reproducing in full, I think. Hattip: Public Servant, obv.
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