Labour MP Tom Watson borrowed a phrase used about Robert Maxwell for his comment about Rupert Murdoch’s fitness to run a big company. But comparing the man who ran the Daily Mirror to the owner of The Sun shows the folly of the verdict. Murdoch is no Maxwell.
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So donors to political parties get to meet ministers! Maybe it is because people prepared to fund a party are also interested in politics?
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When French energy group GDF acquired control of Britain’s International Power in 2010 this blog criticised the pyramid structure. Now that the pyramid is being lowered, it would be churlish to complain.
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BBC television bosses may be annoyed that the Grand National and Derby are moving to Channel 4, but hold on, these are both publicly-owned media groups. Why were they competing against each other in the first place?
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Hutber’s Law stated that: “Improvement equals deterioration”. Bloomberg’s Law is that “less equals more”. The news and data provider wins an award for brazen cheek in cutting its service but telling customers that they thus have a better deal.
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The UK has become the magnate for libel tourism and the venue where foreigners settle their divorces, oligarchs argue commercial disputes and overseas visitors come for medical care. Britain really must not become the location of choice for international bankruptcy too.
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SMEs are the backbone of the British economy – but why are the medium-size enterprises bracketed with the country’s small firms rather than the big corporations? Some small firms are sick of being grouped with the mediums – and the mediums want to move in with the large.
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EU president Manuel Barroso can now see the price of proposing a pan-eurozone bond to bail out the bankrupt nations. It has pushed up German bond yields.
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If the government was really reforming Britain’s employment laws it would abolish the minimum wage. When the supply of labour is greater than the demand, it is the price that ought to adjust, not the length of the dole queue.
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Not many companies try to solve their pension problems by cutting workers’ retirement incomes. Well not blatantly, anyway. But step forward Boots the chemist.
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