Ryanair

Which businessman is the most influential in the making of government policy? The answer came to me when I received a letter fining me £80 for forgetting to renew my car insurance by the correct date. But it could also have come to me had I forgotten to fill out of council tax enquiry form (fine £70), missed getting in my tax return by one day (£100), or got caught in a box junction in the King’s Road which has two sets of traffic lights in quick succession (£130). It is, I have come to believe, Michael O’Leary. The Ryanair boss has mastered a business model whereby you lure in

Sir Mervyn King was his own man to the end: professorial, downbeat, against the tide. At last week’s Mansion House dinner — as in his final vote in favour of more QE, on which his Monetary Policy Committee colleagues bade him farewell by defeating him six to three — he was still worrying about a potential reversal of the fragile recovery. Even as he packs his collection of Aston Villa programmes and MPC minutes into plastic crates, the prospect of collateral damage from another euro-storm will be furrowing his brow. So his last speech as Governor was short on jokes and long on warnings: about ‘unfinished business’ and lessons unlearned,