Bizarre as it may seem, representing the self-declared party of business and being the government official tasked with helping to promote British business interests overseas, Liam Fox has slammed British business leaders as being “fat” and “lazy” and preferring downtime to making a success of their operations.
Liam Fox apparently made these remarks at a Conservative Party event (Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite section within the Party that has neo-liberalism at the core of its agenda). Dr. Fox’s remarks were recorded by a reporter from The Times newspaper.
Fox’s remarks were geared around Britain’s business leaders being “too lazy and too fat”, and with many businessmen (his emphasis of the ‘male’ gender) preferring “golf on a Friday afternoon” rather than contributing to the country’s prosperity.
Fox said (as reported by The Times): “This country is not the free-trading nation it once was. We have become too lazy, and too fat on our successes in previous generations,” adding “Companies who could be contributing to our national prosperity – but choose not to because it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can’t play golf on a Friday afternoon – we’ve got to be saying to them if you want to share in the prosperity of our country you have a duty to contribute to the prosperity of our country.”
The remarks have prompted outrage from many business leaders. For example, the BBC quotes Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent Drinks, who said Mr Fox “had never done a day’s business in his life”.
To add to this, the opposition Labour Party condemned the remarks. Labour MP Chuka Umunna remarked, via Twitter, that Liam Fox’s comments were “a complete disgrace, coming from the man supposed to be promoting our businesses globally.”
The Prime Minister has yet to comment directly on the remarks. A spokesperson for Mrs May’s Downing Street office said that Liam Fox was simply expressing his personal views, which were not those of the government.
