Cutting on gas

What was interesting about the announcement this week by British Gas about plans to axe 300 jobs in Leicestershire is what it did not say.

The energy supplier, which is proposing redundancies at its offices in Grove Park, Enderby and Aylestone Road, Leicester, said it wanted to transfer the jobs overseas, but would not say where.

It is very likely to be Asia, and most probably India.

The official British Gas line was that it had not yet decided where to relocate the call centre and administrative work.

The real explanation is British Gas naively thought if it didn't say the work was moving to India it would somehow avoid negative headlines about 'Indian call centres'.

The trouble is the British public are not stupid. They know it's likely to be India in the same way they know someone with an Indian accent with a vague knowledge of the British weather and TV soaps does not reassure them they are talking to someone in Britain about their gas bill.