Tattoos, hooligans and the gem of all bad quotes

Pim de Lange, Director of Stena Line's North Sea route, has become the latest in a long line of business leaders to prove that communiation skills and leadership are not always linked, saying that UK workers are "quite fat and covered in tattoos". The usual defence of context has been made but surely even if these views are held in private there can't be any context where they can be uttered in public?

I am reminded of a couple of other quotes taken out of context. Gerald Ratner famously called their jewellery "total crap" and David Shepherd (marketing chief of Topman) called their customers "hooligans".

JB