Trashing Trust
With a false prospectus
Theranos Inc. and Elizabeth Holmes: two names a million miles away from UK politics, and yet . . .
The post-trial soul-searching over the failed $9.6bn Californian blood analysis company and its now convicted founder/CEO, holds timely lessons not only for Westminster, but for all political parties and the entire UK electorate.
The epic 10-year Theranos saga was prime example of the ‘rush for riches’ ethos epitomised by the “Fake it ’til you make it” school of start-up innovators. The saga is not yet over. The CEO will not be sentenced for her fraud conviction until next September, after the trial of her company’s president.
The fall-out includes great personal losses — sad stories of lifesavings lost, careers wrecked, and reputations tarnished — and a massive crash of trust in good governance. The trial exposed the lies, the cover-ups, attempted suppression of whistle-blowers, and the failings of ‘due diligence’ processes. Tiny grains of truth, mixed with large doses of wishful thinking, topped with confident presentational skills and few questions — a recipe for a fraudulent money-making machine.
Trashing trust is relatively easy, but its restoration is a major undertaking — and for some it will be impossible. The unavoidable truth is that trust trashing is a deeply embedded consequence of unmoderated capitalist economics. The pursuit of growth is described by Kate Raworth as, “The end that never ends”.
But now, we can glimpse the end — the catastrophic collapse of our life-sustaining climate, but, more immediately, the collapse of a government built on very small grains of truth, massive doses of wishful thinking, laced with presentational panache, baked in an unregulated oven, served without even the merest hint of embarrassment — a false prospectus leaving voters gutted.
__________
A version of this story was first published in the UK by LibDemVoice.org — the online channel for Liberal Democrat supporters.
