I found this 1913 article about Sir Charles Macara serendipitously when looking for the nearby article about the “suicide” of Emily Davison via Samizdata. It was on the same page of the original Times paper.

We know that the “employers” lost the initial argument over National Insurance and organised themselves after the event to fight for reform. They formed a Council and later an Association, and lobbied Parliament for reform to “the present measure”. That measure – the NI jobs tax – persists to this day, with the added problem of nationalised welfare provision.

For me this episode shows that companies have never enjoyed the strong position in the media they are sometimes thought to command. Okay, the Institute of Directors gets it’s fair share of quotes in the press but the debate seems to always go against big business. Enterprises need to watch for threats in arising from public opinion and watch what opinions are being fermented and spread by activist media. Forewarned, they should be able to organise in advance and may have a better chance.

This example from the Financial Times (discussed on the Silicon Roundabout blog) shows one future threat; the backlash against BigTech has only just started.