Let’s stop lining housebuilders’ pockets and tax them instead | Aditya Chakrabortty

Jeff Fairburn’s £75m bonus has sharpened focus on the vast windfalls generated by help to buy

When historians seek to understand just how blatantly warped British capitalism became in the early 21st century, they will turn to a recent edition of BBC Look North and a man called Jeff.

Perhaps you know the interview, for it has already been fed to the social-media beast and provided countless laughs. In it, Jeff Fairburn, the boss of giant housebuilder Persimmon, is chatting away about bricks when the reporter politely asks about the “furore” over his £75m bonus. Amazingly Fairburn and his press adviser have no answer, even though, as the interviewer points out, it was the biggest bonus in the country. Finally Fairburn lumbers off, muttering: “It’s really unfortunate you’ve done that.”

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