Diageo’s ‘Alpha male whizzkid in braces from the 1980s’ caught with trousers down on Kilmarnock closure

Paul Walsh, Diageo’s robotic CEO, has been called a lot of things during the profit-driven closure of the Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock, railroaded through at the cost of 700 jobs. He has probably never been called anything quite so picturesque as the description the Sunday Herald (13th September) credited to Douglas Reid, the SNP Leader of East Ayrshire Council.

Mr Reid’s contemptuous picture of an ‘Alpha male whizzkid in braces from the 1980s who can’t be seen to be wrong’ was born of anger at the disclosure that, while publicly claiming ‘an open mind’ on the proposed closure pending the Scottish Government’s preparation of an alternative outcome, Mr Walsh had, within hours, told American investors in Diageo: ‘Bear in mind that a lot of the restructuring efforts we’ve announced over time will help gross margin’.

OK – this looks duplicitous. Who ever thought anything else? This is more a case for reassurance of good judgment than it is for assumed shock.

As a description of Diageo’s sole focus in its socially irresponsible treatment of a long loyal town, ‘gross margin’ has a very different interpretation in the eyes of most Scots.

Mr Walsh’s actions have brought upon the company an unaccustomed and relentless scrutiny by independent media services like ourselves and the Islay newspaper, The Ileach, of its commercial practices within the Scotch whisky industry which, unhealthily, it dominates.

The 1980s whizzkid in braces may eventually feel his metaphorical trousers slip. Size may matter now. Will it matter then?