My colleague has written about the Harvey-Jones view of finance directors, but few will remember his very low opinion of accountants. Back in 2003 he had these arresting words in the The Independent for accountants while reflecting on corporate culture in the wake of the Enron scandal.

‘Accountants go to the far end of a fart to make the accounting system measurable. They go to extreme lengths on what is easily measurable, but make no efforts on things that are absolutely crucial to the future of the company – for example, valuing the opinion your customers have of you.’

He added that accountants

‘go to immense trouble to measure what you could earn, but they never make one-hundredth of the effort to measure what happens if things go horribly wrong. The accountant really has to give a full and fair view of every position. Otherwise he’s failing in his duty.’

Blimey! What on earth was it like being his finance director? Brutal? Terrifying? He would not have suffered fools gladly. What, hopefully, this colourful quote really means is that he didn’t like ‘yes’ men. In any way whatsoever. Don’t spin the figures, just tell it like it is. But I wonder whether his argument about the operational priorities of accountants stands up to scrutiny? Somehow I doubt it. Harvey-Jones was shrewd man and I have no doubt he got what he needed out of accountants and was fully aware of their worth. As long as they worked his way.