Editorial: Businesses deserve credit for what are very big decisions

Politicians sometimes resemble managers of struggling football teams; bad results are often written off as bad luck and outside of one’s control, but when the ball bounces in off somebody’s backside for a much-needed 90th minute winner they are, per the man in charge, often the result of some training ground masterstroke. 

So it is with the claiming of credit for major British firms’ decision to get out of Russian ventures. Last night the business secretary was at pains to inform the world that he had spoken to Shell’s bosses prior to their announcement that they were bringing to an end their Gazprom engagement. There was a veritable queue of politicians looking for similar back-slapping after BP’s decision on Sunday evening to exit its 20 per cent stake in Rosneft. 

Only those around the oil majors’ boardroom tables will know the truth, but our instinct is it was more the launching of a horrendous, violent, land-grab war being reported across our screens and in our newspapers that swayed the mind of business leaders for whom political pressure is simply part of the job description. 

Now these are extraordinary times and if ever there was a moment for political pressure, this was it. We expect, by the end of the week, many of those other firms with Russian entanglements will have got out too: some are simply working out how in the world they do it without irritating one-eyed shareholders. But business leaders have consciences, and the crowing by political leaders strikes us as being damaging for the reputation of business more broadly. 

The implication that only political office holders are able to sway the minds of unthinking, greed-driven corporations isn’t just wrong, but unfair on a business community that over the past few years has done more on E,S and G than all the governments of the world combined. They did that not because they were told to, but because it was the right thing to do. Credit lies with the City’s bosses – not with Westminster.