A HEFTY dose of post-credit crunch soul-searching surfaced in an unexpected quarter last week.

It started with Confederation of British Industry director general Richard Lambert asserting that business could never be a force for good while boardrooms focused narrowly on profit or “shareholder value”.

Now the chief executive of Unilever, Paul Polman, has joined the debate. In a newspaper interview, Mr Polman said that his first concern was consumers, not shareholders. Do right by the consumer, he argued, and profits will follow.

Fretting about short-termism is not new. What is new is to hear such views from the captains of industry who have traditionally been enslaved to the pursuit of short-term profits.

The pay of chief executives of publicly quoted businesses depends on the share price performance of the companies they run. Share options have traditionally been exercisable over just a few years. Whether a chief executive is allowed to keep his job depends first and foremost on persuading the City’s fund managers and analysts that he can deliver double-digit year-on-year growth in earnings, even in the bad times, which can result in cost-cutting.

I can’t help wondering whether Mr Lambert’s views are influenced by his experiences as editor of the Financial Times.

Newspapers are a perfect example of a type of highly cyclical business that should not be subject to the quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year vagaries of their market places. Management performance should be judged on the basis of earnings smoothed out over a number of years. Arguably a decade is too short a time horizon for newspaper publishers. They need to think from one generation to the next.

Of course, every business has to keep its head above the waterline of viability at all times, but they don’t need to maximise returns by squeezing out every possible penny of profit.

It boils down to whether there is more to life than money. Is it better to do a job well, providing a good service or product while making enough profit?

But who needs to be convinced first, if long-termism is to take a grip? Chief executives and boards report to City fund managers who, ultimately, report to you and me. When investing in a financial product, most of us will ask about its track record.

So, how do you bring about the cultural change needed to allow our big companies to focus more on matters like consumer satisfaction, the environment and longer term returns if the rest of us are busy scrutinising the short-term performance of our pension funds?

I expect the soul searching will end once the economy starts to motor again.

I LIKE the month of April. The days are getting longer and warmer. Time to plan for summer fun.

Yesterday, however, I developed a worry that this April might drag on.

In the good old days, British politics was more polarised and the arguments were more fundamenatal, substantive and passionate.

Should the commanding heights of the economy be nationalised or privatised?

Should the rich pay 97% income tax and should NHS spending be doubled or halved?

Nowadays, the arguments are more marginal. Should NICs be raised 1% and should £10bn or £11bn be saved from the health budget.

In Wavertree, the debate has deteriorated to whether it’s more objectionable to vote for a candidate from London or Berkshire. All seems a bit petty, really. Sooner it’s over, the better.