Former BHS owner Sir Philip Green has been traversing the tranquil southern European seas in his humungous new £100 million yacht, staffed by a crew to cater for his, his family’s and his pets’ every need.

That might be fine if the flagship High Street chain was still going strong and if the pension funds were in a healthy condition.

Instead, nine decades of retail history comes to an end today as the final stores close. 11,000 workers lose their jobs and many will be facing the consequences of what a committee of MPs described as “the unacceptable face of capitalism.”

The Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee really didn’t mince its words about the demise of BHS and the culpability of its leadership:

The evidence we have received over the course of this inquiry has at times resembled a circular firing squad. Witnesses appeared to harbour the misconception that they could be absolved from responsibility by blaming others. The worst example was Sir Philip Green, despite his protestations to the contrary. Sir Philip adopted a scattergun approach, liberally firing blame to all angles except his own, though he began his evidence by saying he would do the opposite. The truth is that a large proportion of those who have got rich or richer off the back of BHS are to blame. Sir Philip Green, Dominic Chappell and their respective directors, advisers and hangers-on are all culpable. The tragedy is that those who have lost out are the ordinary employees and pensioners. This is the unacceptable face of capitalism.

None of this is the fault of the mostly female, mostly low-paid staff who ran the stores, yet they will pay the biggest price. Those losing their jobs today will be 10% worse off in retirement. That’s a big hit. Imagine how you would feel if your income dropped by a tenth.

Green has of course told the MPs that he would contribute to the pension gap but so far no funds have been forthcoming.

Instead, associates of his have suggested that the funds could be conditional on an investigation by regulators being dropped. 

One ally of the Topshop billionaire said: “This would be a voluntary contribution, and it would be unrealistic to expect it to be made unless the anti-avoidance probe was discontinued.”

How have we managed to create a system where the extremely wealthy think it is reasonable for them to escape scrutiny?

It’s been good to see BHS employees fighting back, though. Former store manager Lin Macmillan, someone I’m lucky  to have as a friend, has been running a lively campaign in support of the pensioners. She’s been calling for Philip Green to sell his yachts and plug the gap in the pension fund. She’s been all over the media in recent months She told fashion industry site Drapers on Friday:

I have started the petition myself because I was so appalled at what was happening,” she said. ”Sir Philip Green has been on his yacht for over a month now and he says he will sort the pension deficit, but I think you need to meet with The Pensions Regulator to do that – it’s not something you can do remotely.

Yesterday, Macmillan visited the Glasgow store – which is one of the final stores to close – and described employees as “still working very professionally and cheerfully helping customers, trying to sort out the last of the stock, which frankly was a mess”.

“They did have it sorted as much as they could, but it looked like a complete jumble sale,” she said. “Around three-quarters of the store is empty because they’d moved all the stock into one place, so the rest of it felt like an aircraft hangar.”

Macmillan, who stopped working for BHS in 1990, said she first became worried about the chain around eight years ago when visiting stores that had far fewer customers than in her time at the retailer.

“I can remember days when you could not move in there for customers, particularly around Christmas time, but when I visited stores later there were often more staff than customers so you did start to think something was wrong,” she said.

“At the beginning of March this year, we got a booklet from the pensions trustees. It set out options if BHS did go into administration, which really got alarm bells ringing.

“The worry is that now this could drag on for a long time and the pensions of those of us who no longer work for the company don’t keep pace with inflation, and people working for BHS when it closed will only get 90%.”

Here she is giving a detailed interview ahead of Green’s appearance before the select committee. She’s also been on BBC today.

She’s a great, calm, reasonable voice for BHS pensioners and she is not the type to give up until she sees a satisfactory outcome.

Please sign Lin’s petition if you support her and the tens of thousands of retail workers who deserve the retirement they paid for. These pensions are not particularly generous as it is and they shouldn’t have to pay the price of the incompetence of super wealthy company owners.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron’s Musings