please empty your brain below
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I love how the descenders for Ford in the Great Court are *just* low enough for a prod by a passing finger.
Kevin | 26.03.19 - 7:37 a.m. | #
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The Tate galleries should be renamed given that the Tate family money came form peddling sugar which Professor Jamie Oliver has discovered is responsible for all the obesity in the world.
MKIan | 26.03.19 - 7:42 a.m. | #
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It's that pesky social media again, giving publicity to all the wrong stuff, but the opioid crisis has plenty of other fingerprints on it, belonging to regulators and politicians, however they continue the 'war on drugs' by locking up El Chapo, meanwhile we hear that the FAA deemed certain safety features in Boeing aircraft as optional, so they could charge extra for fitting them - but we have been here before with smoking and car safety (the Chevrolet Corvair was one of the more high profile ones), and its not just the US - remember the diesel emissions scandal at VW - nothing has changed.
Still Anon | 26.03.19 - 7:42 a.m. | #
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Show me the benefactor(s) who haven't made their money by exploition at some level... even if it is 'only' the workers paid low/minimum wage.
This 'revelation' is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg.
Blue Witch | 26.03.19 - 7:51 a.m. | #
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Thanks for this. Although I was aware of some of these, I had no idea that the Sackler name was so pervasive.
BlackCat3000 | 26.03.19 - 7:59 a.m. | #
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The Sackler family were wealthy before their drug company Purdue started to sell OxyContin in 1996. By all accounts, there are questions to answer about how the drug was marketed, and no doubt that dispute will work its way through the US court system, but really, opiates are addictive? Who knew? More to the point, opiates are effective painkillers if used carefully. It would be a shame if even more people were left in pain due to disproportionate anxiety about drug misuse.
I suppose some morally virtuous billionaires can be sought to fund our arts, in place of "tainted" money from the Sacklers.
Andrew | 26.03.19 - 8:19 a.m. | #
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I am reminded of George Hudson Street, York which regained its original name, having spent most of the last hundred years as Railway Street. Perhaps New York should have a Ponzi Avenue?
Mike D | 26.03.19 - 8:38 a.m. | #
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I've never understood this preciousness about 'tainted' money. Whatever the source, surely it's better put (subverted, even) to good use than bad. And that Tate sugar money couldn't have been made without slavery...
Sarah | Homepage | 26.03.19 - 8:40 a.m. | #
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We built this city on Rock and Roll...oh wait...
Cornish Cockney | 26.03.19 - 10:35 a.m. | #
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Sarah I agree.
Joho | 26.03.19 - 11:04 a.m. | #
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Great list DG. I was familiar with the Sackler name in galleries but hadn't realised QUITE how much they had donated over the years!
The Tate horse has indeed bolted, but at least it would a beautifully painted one by George Stubbs
Mikey C | 26.03.19 - 11:24 a.m. | #
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Henry Tate was 14 years old when the act abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire became law in 1833. He made his money from a chain of grocery shops in Liverpool and in the 1870s from sugar refineries in Liverpool and London. He was never the owner of sugar plantations in the Caribbean or elsewhere
MO | 26.03.19 - 12:44 p.m. | #
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Are there any morally virtuous billionaires? But,the world would be a poorer place without them, we would still be living in the dark ages.
mikeH | 26.03.19 - 12:53 p.m. | #
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I don't buy this argument that all billionaires are equally obnoxious. To get that rich you have to be money-focused and selfish perhaps but you also have to be hard working, talented and lucky.
According to the wikipedia list of the ten richest people in the world all have made their wealth from well known businesses. Six are from IT businesses (Bezos, Gates, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Page, Bloomberg). The others are all owners of respected well-known businesses. You can argue about the ethical rights and wrongs of Facebook, Google, etc. but all have made a positive contribution to the world by providing goods and services that customers like. None are in the same league as the Sacklers.
Eric | 26.03.19 - 1:43 p.m. | #
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These things do matter. Some years ago I was tangentially involved in a court case where a man convicted of fraud (and who had done time) wanted to be able to take up a position that his conviction would normally prohibit. He was able to produce reams of signed letters from the great and good confirming what a charitable and generous man he was.
I'm not saying he wasn't generous - he clearly was. Nor am I saying he'd set out to buy favour - but he definitely seemed to have. He won his case.
Anon today | 26.03.19 - 1:59 p.m. | #
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They are doing good work with the money that they've earned. Or rather, were. Much better that they had continued to so.
I smell both a moralistic (but above all facile) witch-hunt and an ensuing impoverishment of cultural life.
Dominic H | 26.03.19 - 2:24 p.m. | #
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Matthew 6 vv 1-4
timbo | 26.03.19 - 2:25 p.m. | #
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mo money, mo problems.
GT | 26.03.19 - 2:48 p.m. | #
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Where did the Sacklers get their money? From people who chose to buy their harmful, addictive drugs.
Where do the sellers of heroin and cocaine get their money? From people who choose to buy their harmful, addictive drugs.
The buyers of harmful, addictive drugs must bear some responsibility for the trade that goes on. How much responsibility? Well, if they didn't choose to buy, there wouldn't be any trade.
RayL | 26.03.19 - 6:44 p.m. | #
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I don't normally chip in and say this, but blimey that is an impressively ignorant argument.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.03.19 - 6:50 p.m. | #
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DG, please expand.
RayL | 26.03.19 - 7:04 p.m. | #
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I like to kid myself that the Smith Wing or the Jones Building are named at the insistence of the recipient organisation to show gratitude, with the donor oh-so-reluctantly agreeing. The Sacklers do though seem particularly keen to have not just their family's name but their individual names commemorated. I'd think better of them if they donated anonymously, though I admit that is self-defeating.
Part of me also thinks that (very indirectly) it's my money they are giving away without me having any say in which cause it supports.
Andrew S | 26.03.19 - 8:38 p.m. | #
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If you're donating money out of the kindness of your heart then wouldn't you do it anonymously? Anything else is just vulgar.
Darren | 26.03.19 - 9:42 p.m. | #
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Maybe anonymous donations do happen, but by their nature we don't hear about them. A named donation is better referred to as sponsorship or advertising.
timbo | 26.03.19 - 10:15 p.m. | #
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Maybe firms found to have immoral trade can still donate, but regulated by the government and having the donation named as "fines" would make a lot of people feel happier.
Patrickov | 27.03.19 - 12:42 a.m. | #
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I just put Sackler into the search box on GoogleMaps, to see if there was anything else that might pop out.
There's also one of the Royal College of Art buildings in Battersea named after them, in Howie Street; and a library in Oxford that also carries their name.
RogerW | 29.03.19 - 7:31 a.m. | #
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