Any other business: Not so negative outlook as trade picks up and protestors pack their tents

Time for one of my periodic round-ups of relatively good news, as the last of the snow melts and confused bluebell and daffodil shoots that appeared in mild December begin to raise their heads once more. On Tuesday morning you could almost hear them squeaking, ‘Look out, here comes Ed Balls again’, as the shadow chancellor ranted about the ‘negative outlook’ warning that Moody’s has issued against its triple-A rating for UK public debt.

But Balls said nothing in his Today interview about two other forecasts. The CBI is now predicting growth of 0.2 per cent in this quarter and...

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Any other business: Enough indiscriminate business bashing: time for ministers to start cheerleading

There’s something peculiarly cynical about a political strategy that involves alienating pockets of your own core support in order to attract larger numbers of floating voters. Thus, we’re told, Conservative enthusiasm for High Speed 2 is partly based on the calculation that threats by foxhunting landowners to desert the Tory interest will provoke an uptick in the suburbs, where young mothers will feel more comfortable voting for a party that is no longer the preserve of red-faced rich men — and the recent outburst against the rail project in these pages by David Cameron’s own stepfather-in-law, Lord Astor, was manna...

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Any other business: Third time lucky? Hoare Govett is the history of the modern City writ small

Amidst the gunfire generated by Stephen Hester’s bonus — on which I’m glad to say he took my advice and did the decent thing, so like Stephen Wraysford at the end of Birdsong he deserves a few days’ rest — I was intrigued by the week’s other RBS story. Hester is reported to be selling the troubled bank’s corporate stockbroking arm, Hoare Govett, to Jefferies, a US securities house. This will be the third change of ownership in 30 years for a firm whose name is so redolent of the pre-Big Bang era that many of us had forgotten it...

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Any other business: Capping Hester’s bonus is far more important than stripping Goodwin’s knighthood

‘Always frightfully keen on the money,’ mutters a City grandee who watched Stephen Hester build his career at Credit Suisse, Abbey and British Land before taking over the helm of the sinking Royal Bank of Scotland from Sir Fred Goodwin. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong (let’s remember) in wanting to prosper alongside your shareholders. But as I wrote in July 2009, hiring a troubleshooter for RBS whose first instinct was to negotiate his own £1.2 million salary and £6 ­million share package was a missed opportunity ‘to set a public benchmark for more moderate City pay scales, which most of us...

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Any other business: Have you wondered why there’s only one John Lewis Partnership, Mr Clegg?

‘A John Lewis economy’ was a strong soundbite from Nick Clegg, even if it failed to resonate with Netto shoppers lower down the social scale than the Cleggs. The Deputy Prime Minister is ‘pushing for real, early, radical action’ to make this ‘the decade of employee share ownership’, and no one can deny he’s picked a potent theme at a time when conventional capitalism seems hellbent on self-destruction. But having bagged a headline, he should pause to ask himself this: if John Spedan Lewis invented such a brilliant business model — which he did — then how come it hasn’t...

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Davos Diary: Back home!

Just back from Davos — and it took every bit of energy I could muster to do it justice. At every turn, there was a blizzard of choices: whether to go to another discussion about which countries will drive global growth this year, or meet up with that economics expert you slid past on the icy roads between the Congress Centre and the Belvedere hotel. More than exhausting, it’s extremely stressful.

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Davos Diary: Day 1

Want to get by in Davos? Then technology is what you need. I only arrived yesterday, and have already realised how woefully short of technical nous I am. There are basic gaps in my understanding all the way: from finding the right adaptor plugs in my bedroom to adding the Davos apps to my iPad. I had to engage the assistance of both the hotel porter and my longstanding friend Lindy just to get by.

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Tesco’s big drop may indicate a shopping revolution

Poor Tesco. It wanted a Big Price Drop – just not in its shares. The giant grocer saw its stock price plummet 16 per cent yesterday, a £5 billion wipe-out in market value, after warning that its UK profits may fall this year. If Tesco does eventually report a decrease in earnings, that would be its first time in three decades. It would also be tangible proof that the way we are shopping is changing, perhaps irrevocably.

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Is China the new England (only bigger)?

Some time last year, China became a predominantly urbanised nation – more than 50 per cent of its people now live in towns and cities. The Middle Kingdom today, in fact, looks a lot like the England of the 1890s, says Stephen Green of Standard Chartered. He’s issued a report saying the two entities are remarkably alike – except in China, it’s all happening on a far, far bigger scale. One thing that China needs to emulate from England, though, is ‘market-friendly institutions’ free of political control.

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High-speed IT may outstrip need for high-speed rail

We’ve trundled along this territory before, but given the latest news that the £32 billion high-speed rail route has received the green light, expect everyone to flag their favourite talking points again.

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The EU’s new vulnerability: central Europe

As if there weren’t enough fires to put out already within the eurozone, there’s another one flaring up outside the common-currency area, in Hungary. Budapest may well be the first EU government to default, pipping Athens to the dubious honour.

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What happens to QE without an AAA?

It’s hard to avoid the impression that QE is like a very, very large cat chasing its own tail. It’s highly uncertain it’s going to get us anywhere.

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