10 Propositions on a Chairman's AGM statement

Here are some remarks an honest chairman of a corporation might make at the annual general meeting of shareholders

1. 'Your company has done good in the world by ruthlessly cutting costs and prices and rewarding you, our risk-takers. Enjoy the pensions it has bought. I’ve told the Today Programme you are my real stakeholders. Actually, my only stakeholders. They loved it'.

2 'I have put some of your money into a Corporate Social Responsibility programme because I want to go to heaven even though it risks the wealth-creation and -spreading discussed in my first proposition. I hope you don't mind...'.

3 'I have told your employees not to invest in this company because it is a high-risk, high-reward business. I know you understand this, but I fear some of them did not'.

4 'I have invested in CSR because, whilst it is money I have had to take from you, it is the most cost-efficient way of neutralising various whingers and campaigners who are so badly taught that they don’t know how wrong they are.'

5 'I have invested in CSR because it is the only way to be sure of having a place at table and behind the scenes in government circles. In this sense, and I know it’s odd, your money will help us get our way in business matters'.

6 'I have invested in CSR because some of our best employees and customers believe this claptrap and can most economically be kept on board with a little indulgence of this kind. Call it a way of avoiding paying them proper wages and lowering prices'

7 'I have invested in CSR because it’s been a particularly ruthless cost-cutting year. Many jobs and customer services have gone by the board. Oddly, a little bit of CSR money seems to make this sort of toughness easier – that is, cheaper - to get on with.'

8 'I have invested in CSR because it will bring in further business and make existing businesses more efficient, by motivating staff, etc. Oddly enough, the harder I over-sell this bit of enlightened self-interest as virtuous, the more it does its job of aiding profits'.

9 'I have invested in CSR because I need to shut down a good many of our old fashioned local provision, and I’m told reaching out to the community in this way will get the local politicians and campaigners off my back'.

10 'Look, we need to invest in CSR because our children - yours and mine - make our lives miserable at home if we don't go along with it. God knows, they spend our money freely enough, but they don’t seem to like the way we make it.'