Building on his previous article 'Stewardship Lessons from News Corp' Tomorrow's Company Founder Director Mark Goyder assesses the lessons that can be learned from the appearance of Rupert and James Murdoch in front of a Parliamentary Select Committee.  

In 2002 Mark Goyder wrote "Lessons from Enron". It was a story about the culture of fear and greed at the top of the company, and how Enron's non-execs, who were there to hold them to account, failed to restrain it.  In this article Mark looks at the similarities between Enron's corporate culture and that of News Corp, in the light of recent events. He asks what lessons can be learned from these failings and spells out the need for a greater measure of stewardship throughout the investment chain.  

Few writers have devoted more time to the everalsting conflict between Good and Evil, War and Peace, Love and Violence than Leo Tolstoy and it was in helping a friend compile a book on Malcolm Muggeridge that I first discovered the story of the Green Stick.  What I  also learned of Muggeridge was his endeavours in the 1930s to report on Stalin's man made Famine which he described as  "“one of the most monstrous crimes in history, so terrible that people in the future will scarcely believe it ever happened.”.  It was an experience that haunted him for the rest of his life. One of my favourite extracts from the 1970s TV series Kung Fu, is the scene where two youths report to their master having been robbed. The lesson learned is that "We affirm the good in man through trust and deal with evil through strength". That we should not seek reward in striving for an ideal. but that trust can lead to love.  Our own experience was to discover the story which was to become know as 'Death...

I've listened carefully to the discussions of the past two days and tried to formulate these remarks as late as possible. Let me suggest four concrete action points which reflect Commissioner Andor's commitment to what he called 'a new and modern EU CSR policy framework'.

Crises are normal and of all times: they are always generally unexpected, with the next one quite different from the previous one (as we have put the breaks and stress-tests in place to prevent the previous one from occurring again), and more difficult to contain, manage and resolve. What the current crisis has taught us is how interdependent the world has become;