The Last Leg’s Alex Brooker slams ‘abhorrent’ P&O after brother was one of 800 staff sacked without warning

The Last Leg’s Alex Brooker shared his personal connection to the news P&O Ferries had sacked 800 of its staff over Zoom this week, with his brother one of those affected.

On Thursday, the company announced via video message to over 800 staff that they were being made immediately redundant from their jobs.

The news was met with nationwide backlash with Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Labour Markets Minister Paul Scully writing to the CEO to establish whether any laws had been broken.

On Friday’s The Last Leg, the show’s hosting team and guests also hit out at the move, with Alex explaining his brother’s own experience. 

Host Adam Hills introduced the topic after a viewer tweeted in: ‘@Brekkietweets said “#isitok that @POFerries don’t want Putin getting #D**kOfTheYear award to be a foregone conclusion?”

‘Yeah, if you don’t know this one, P&O basically fired 800 people by playing them a pre-recorded message on a Zoom call.

Alex shared his brother’s experience of finding out he’d been sacked (Picture: Channel 4)

‘Many of the staff were actually on board ships at the time, and the weird thing is Alex has got a personal connection to this,’ Adam shared.

Alex began: ‘Yeah, my brother was sadly one of the people who lost his job yesterday, he was on a night shift, he works as a chef, right.

‘He was on the night shift, he got woken up after doing his shift, and they said ‘Come downstairs’, and after being woken up after his night shift he got told 21 years he had been there, done.

‘Just done and not only that basically, but you also have to leave, get off the ship right now your career with us is done, get off the ship, it is disgusting.

On Friday, People protested outside the offices of DP World, who own P&O Ferries, after the company fired hundreds of employees (Picture: REUTERS)

He went on to add: ‘It shouldn’t be legal, and to make matters worse, when they escorted people off the ship who had lost their jobs, they had new workers waiting in minibuses to go on, which is just…’

Adam cut in to note how the replacement agency staff would be working for considerably less money. 

‘Yeah, it’s abhorrent,’ Alex agreed. 

The star went on to joke: ‘It’s got me worried for me and Josh [Widdecombe] because I saw Rosie Jones and Rob Beckett outside in a car.’

Adam then turned to guest Ria Lina as he asked her about her time working on P&O Cruises.

She said: ‘I worked as an entertainer, but as you may know, a lot of them are staffed, especially below deck.

‘When I was walking above deck, people wouldn’t know and be like “excuse me, you haven’t cleaned my room yet,” and I did I went into all their rooms but just to steal stuff,’ she joked.

Protests were held at ports on Friday in response and will take place outside the Conservative Party’s spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday, with unions calling for a boycott of the company.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said on Friday that the Government was looking to see if the company’s actions broke the relevant rules.

‘We are looking very closely at the actions that this company has taken to see whether they acted within the rules,’ the spokesman said.

More: Channel 4

‘Once we have concluded that, we will decide what the ramifications are. Obviously, there are a lot of valid questions in relation to existing contracts.’

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said there should be a widespread public and commercial boycott of the ferry giant until the jobs are reinstated.

The Last Leg airs Fridays from 10pm on Channel 4. 

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