Pharma Giles writes ....

Happy Days Are Here Again…

Camera pans across a cheap, glittery studio backdrop consisting of a star-spangled score board emblazoned with the names of major pharmaceutical companies. In front of the set, anonymous hired hands are gabbling into telephones while a whirling digital display on the board behind them notches up ever-increasing numbers.

Enter our host for this evening, GSK’s very own Andrew Witty (for it is he), clad in a ghastly fluorescent pink game-show suit…

VOICEOVER: Yes, it’s time once again to tune in to this month’s Big Pharma Uhhhhhnemploymethon!!! And here’s your host, Andy “Interesting” Witty!!!

(Fanfare of tinny trumpets. Camera pans over to politely applauding audience of investment fund managers, then back to the stage as Witty bounds up to the microphone to the tune of “Happy Days Are Here Again”…)

WITTY: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, I’m proud to have the opportunity to tell you about some of the wonderful initiatives that are being taken by the British pharmaceutical industry to relieve suffering and poverty in the Third World.

(Camera zooms in on Witty’s concerned expression).

There are many places in the world where desperate poverty blights the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Places where there is no industrial infrastructure at all that can offer hope for people to break out of an existence where the average income is barely enough to survive on.

(Snores of indifference from the audience…)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m referring to places such as Liverpool and Dartford, where we’ve shut down our operations and made thousands redundant as part of our latest cost-cutting exercise to make sure that the dividends for our shareholders remain as high as possible…

(Murmers of “well done Witty” and “trebles all round…)

And yet, there is still so much more we can do to alleviate third world poverty. You may have heard of some of the initiatives GSK has been taking to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Indeed, there are still places in Africa, China and India where poverty is endemic, and where the average wage is only a few tens of dollars a year.

(Video clip of children chained to benches stitching training shoes, whilst being hit and shouted out by men with electric cattle prodders)

The British pharmaceutical industry cannot stand by and ignore this situation.

(Cut to a shot of an audience of cheering fund managers…)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve decided to take advantage of such amazingly low worker expectations. GSK will be henceforth be providing four thousand jobs for third world workers, by moving our operations out of Europe and the UK and into Africa and the Far East.

(Wild applause from audience…)

…and not only that, but I’m pleased to announce that my opposite number at AstraZeneca, David Brennan, is planning to do exactly the same with eight thousand jobs...

(Cheers from the audience…)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to be able to contribute so much to the Third World economy. And thanks to the efforts of British companies such as our own, Britain itself will soon be a third world country…

(Smoke starts to pour from scoreboard as it struggles to keep up with the number of job losses).

…and then we’ll be able to transfer all of the industry back again…

(Ticker tape and fireworks. Show plays out to strains of “Another One Bites The Dust”. Camera pans over the audience, which is now a heaving mass of dancing investment bankers popping champagne corks)…

VOICEOVER: Well, that’s all we’ve got time for from this month’s pharmaceutical industry Uuuuunnnnnemploymethon, friends, but don’t stop those lay-offs. Just remember, if you’re a pharma CEO and you’re looking to brutally and randomly cut your headcount or offshore your operation, then give us a call. Our cost-saving target is 100,000 lay-offs before the end of the year and with your help, we’ll make that figure a proud reality.

Good bye friends, God’s speed and haaaaaaaappy downsizing!!!


Hat-tip to the late, great Spike Milligan, who coined the idea of the “Unemploymethon” back in 1983, to satirise the then Conservative government’s policy of selling off or off-shoring of all of the UK’s industrial infrastructure for the personal enrichment of themselves and their supporters.

Of course, things have changed since then, haven’t they…?