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Why sacked public sector bosses don't hand the money back
PLUS: The lost art of buying a drink. Tour America's most expensive home. And the best TV, film and on-screen sport, for a perfect weekend.
Neil McIntosh
August 23, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
👋 Good morning! It’s Saturday 23 August 2025. I’m Neil McIntosh, editor of The Early Line, and it’s great to have you here. Welcome to The Party Line - the weekend supplement for The Early Line newsletter.
☁️☀️ The weekend’s weather: Settled, dry but cloudy with sunny spells today and tomorrow in Glasgow and Edinburgh, while Aberdeen will be a little brighter. London will be a little cloudier today, and sunnier tomorrow. (Here’s the UK forecast).
Here’s six things to think (and talk) about this weekend…
SIX THINGS TO TALK ABOUT
Why they never hand the money back | The lost art of buying a drink | America’s most expensive home
🍸 The disgraced former principal of Dundee University, on whose watch the institution revealed a surprise £35 million deficit, told Holyrood’s education committee back in June that he’d “consider” handing back a £150,000 payout he received on his way out the door.
Guess what? Yes, he hasn't handed anything back yet. He may still be “considering” the money, of course. But in the meantime, members of the education committee continue to insist he doesn’t deserve the cash, reports The Scotsman.
Disgraced public sector figures tend, as a class, to have a poor track record when it comes to handing back the often eye-watering amounts of cash they’re given, even after some dark truth has led to their downfall. The truth is, they don’t have to, so often don’t.
Banking and big business, perhaps ironically, show the way ahead, with statutory (and contractual) means to claw back money should disaster strike. The record-breaking example: BP’s sacked CEO Bernard Looney, who lost £34.2 million after failing to disclose personal relationships with colleagues. There are many others.
One wonders why the public sector hasn’t started to think about similar clawback provisions for its own high-profile appointments.
📣 For paid subscribers, beyond the jump… The movie adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club is this week’s big film, why people have started queing in the pub (and why regulars are fighting back), see inside America’s most expensive home - ever - … AND… TV and sporting recommendations to make it the perfect weekend.
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