Could P+O’s odious chief sink any lower? asks CAROLE MALONE

Hebblethwaite, who was being grilled by MPs, kind of answered the question when he admitted the company had wilfully broken the law and that he took the decision to sack 800 staff without notice or consultation because he knew the unions would never accept normal redundancy.

“I completely throw my hands up,” he said. “There is no doubt we were required to consult with the unions and we chose not to do that.”

Hang on – so, if you don’t like the rules that govern you and which exist to protect workers, you just ignore them and do what the hell you like?

And, yes, that seems to be the case because an unrepentant Hebblethwaite says he’d do the same thing again: “I know that if we hadn’t made radical changes the business would have closed. I would make the same decision again.”

All of which makes a nonsense of the apology he gave to staff he sacked and their families – the same staff burly P&O guards marched off the ships.

He admitted new agency crews who have been taken on will be paid as little as £5.15 an hour – well below the UK minimum wage which is £9.50 from April 1. So the once great P&O is now an advocate of slave labour?

Who with any conscience would ever want to travel or do business with this company ever again?

If they can exploit staff in this callous way, what’s to stop them exploiting ­customers too? So we shouldn’t use them – for anything!

P&O seems to think the fact it’s ­forking out £36million to sacked staff – the largest payout in maritime history – in some way mitigates what it has done to 800 families. It doesn’t.

First, those workers only get the money if they sign gagging orders. Second, whatever they’re paying, it won’t last long. And what happens after that? P&O is a big employer in the Dover area – where are the people whose lives are there going to get jobs?

I wonder if when fat cat Hebblethwaite – who looks like he’s had a few too many good dinners – takes a dip in his pool, he thinks about what happens to a family hit by ­redundancy? As he reaches out for his post-swim G&T does he actually care about the fact that the bottom literally dropped out of their world?

Does it bother him these people whose confidence has been shattered live in fear of never getting another job? Does he understand their terror about losing their homes, of not being able to pay their bills? I don’t suppose, on what he earns, he does.

When he was asked by MPs if he’d refuse any performance-related bonuses from his employers, he batted it off with: “I can’t tell you how far away that is from my thoughts.”

If he had even a smattering of ­conscience his answer would have been: “No, I won’t accept it.” The fact he prevaricated shows that he WILL.

Huw Merriman, Tory chairman of the Transport Committee, says: “We have to make it absolutely clear to P&O they have broken the law and there are ­ramifications for that, including personal liability for the chief executive. He needs to hand his card in.”

I’m pretty sure Hebblethwaite won’t do that.

The man who has brazenly admitted to breaking the law and been responsible for the most vile kind of corporate thuggery will just go back to his mansion, pour himself a large drink and think “job done”.

He’s done the bidding of his Dubai bosses.

Hell, he’ll probably even get a raise.

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Damien Hirst’s perfected the art of ripping off the taxpayer

Damien Hirst – the world’s richest artist with a £300million fortune – claimed more than £1.3million in furlough funds during the pandemic.

That money was supposed to be for hard-pressed taxpayers, people who were on the verge of losing jobs and their livelihoods, not a stinking rich so-called artist who charters private planes with seats for his dogs.

During the lockdowns, Hirst’s business made £18.2million, yet he’s so damn greedy he takes money destined for the poor.

One critic said of him: “All that drives him is the empty thrill of a full wallet.”

And he was right. The man’s a disgrace. I’d say he should be ashamed of himself but I doubt he’d understand the concept.

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Can this coat really have cost £10,500?

Loro Piana, the Italian designer of the £10,500 coat Vladimir Putin was wearing at last week’s rally in Moscow, has been called on to denounce the despot for wearing their gear.

I think it’s more important they apologise for charging £10,500 for an anorak that looks like it’s come out of Mountain Warehouse.

Tories are bad but thank God Labour are not in charge

However bad the Tories sometimes are, you’ve only got to look at the Labour benches to think: “Thank God they’re not in charge.”

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s response to Rishi Sunak’s spring statement was farcical.

She kept referring to him as “Alice in Sunak-land”.

Did she think that was funny?

Ironic?

Clever?

Well, she was wrong on all counts.

That lacklustre, second-rate offering showed her up for exactly what she is – a humourless, not very bright woman who makes Jeremy Corbyn look like an inspirational public speaker.

She also called Sunak “Ted Heath with an Instagram account”. Eh?

Eva Longoria is Desperate to be a Housewife again

Eva Longoria says she’d love to see the Desperate Housewives TV series revived. “I’d be the first to sign up,” she says.

I’ll bet she would. It’s the last big acting job she had.

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Hate crime against Gordon Ramsay is just a Cornish nasty

Gordon Ramsay has been accused of a hate crime after joking he can’t stand the Cornish. He told Zoe Ball’s Breakfast Show: “I love Cornwall – it’s just the Cornish I can’t stand.”

Now locals are up in arms saying they’re a “national minority” and Ramsay’s comment has insulted them.

I wouldn’t usually side with the gobby chef but all he seems to have done to incur the locals’ anger– which has been going on since he moved there – is to have the audacity to buy a flash house in their county.

The Ramsays got it in the neck during lockdown when, at the start of the pandemic, the whole family decamped to Cornwall for a year so they could be together.

Locals accused him of “bringing the virus” from London which isn’t just petty, it’s untrue.

Sorry, but why wouldn’t the Ramsay clan go to the house they see as their family home when the kids aren’t at university? It’s where they all spend time together.

Maybe the Cornish need to just accept the fact he’s rich and has a big house most of them can’t afford.

Because that seems to be his only crime. And let’s face it, zillions of people have houses we all love and can’t afford. It’s life!

Series two of Bridgerton, which started last night, has way fewer sex scenes than the first series, which is a shame because I was hoping for more, not less.

But no, the show’s executive producer Chris Van Dusen says: “It was never about quantity for us. We’ve never done a sex scene for the sake of doing a sex scene.”

Who’s he trying to kid? Some of those scenes between Phoebe Dynevor (Daphne) and the scrumptious Regé-Jean Page (Simon) were wonderfully, gloriously gratuitous.

And I suspect without them (and Page) series two will be all the worse for it.

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Hey, Jamaicans, leave those royals alone

Did Kate and Wills really deserve to be hijacked by protesters on their tour of Jamaica brandishing posters that said: "Racist genocidal family"?

It just all leaves a nasty taste.