It’s right that students pay for their university education but you don’t need a degree to see that a graduate tax is the wrong way to recoup the cost. Let’s hope we can rely on the former BP boss, Lord Browne, to tell politicians their proposed tax is bad.
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Hasn’t history taught us to be wary of empires built on pyramids of quoted companies? Yet one of the UK’s two main power generating companies is about to find itself as the middle bricks of just such a pyramid – a quoted company controlled by another yet owning the majority of subsidiaries that are themselves listed.
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What does it say when the government sets up an inquiry into why there are so few women in boardrooms – and appoints a man to head it. Is that to prove the inquiry’s independence or is it because the committee wanted a proven company leader and most such leaders are male?
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Honda Motor, Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor all hold their shareholders’ meeting on exactly the same day.
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What’s the worst late-deal from the Thomson holiday group? It’s dividend. Investors have to wait until October 2010 to receive profits earned 12 months earlier. Compared with a delayed flight, that’s a long wait with no compensation.

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So now that we eventually have a result for the 2010 general election, who won? Perhaps it is not the Tories and Liberals who are forming a government, but the Labour party, which emerges with its principles intact and the chance to regroup under a new leader.
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If the volcanic cloud that grounded UK aviation for a week has any silver lining it may be to provide a better understanding of risk. A safe flight is one that never takes off: the question is how much risk we are prepared to accept.
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Travellers expect their airlines to foot the bill for their enforced grounding. Airlines want governments to compensate them for their losses. Where are governments meant to find the money? Taxing travellers, presumably.
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Was your journey really necessary? Probably not, now that the Europeanwide flying ban has become the latest transport problem to prevent businessmen travelling. Grounding the continent’s executives is a good reminder than commerce can be conducted electronically quite efficiently.
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Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury has generated more than enough heat to melt a chocolate bar but the surprise should be that more US companies are not bidding for British businesses. There may never be a better time for American bidders to pick up cheap UK companies.
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