Headlines – Our finest Olympic Hour makes the front page, British athletes celebrated three gold medals in 47 minutes on Saturday, pushing the tally to six golds for the day. Britain moves into third place behind the USA and China.
Not the finest hour for Boris Johnson during the week as the Mayor of London gave a plausible impersonation of a dope on a rope, dangling on a jammed zip wire in the Olympic Park. It could have been a scene from BBC’s 2012. Waving two Union Jacks and wearing a UN peace keeping helmet, Boris was screaming “Parachute me into Syria, I hear Kofi Annan has quit”.
Nevertheless, the Olympics appear to have boosted the blondies chance of becoming Prime Minister. Cripes! He could be Prime Minister screams the headline on page 15. It is the mad season for speculation. Boris in number Ten and Vince Cable next door, the dream ticket apparently.
No wonder Downing Street has begun informal discussion for a trial separation with the Clegg clique. A coalition divorce could give the Tories a clear year before the election to distance themselves from the LIberal Democrats. With the Lib Dems holding a 10% share of the polls and membership falling by 25%, the estrangement could not begin soon enough for some back benchers.
David Smith, is back from holiday. Not sure if he has been to Sweden but the contrast between the economics fortunes of the UK and Sweden is the main theme. What can we learn from the Swedish experience? “The most fundamental lesson is that devaluation is no short cut to export [or economic] success”. Maybe the policy needs more time to work he adds – not clear if this is a reference to 1967, 1948 or 1931.
Economics news this week, base rates remain on hold, latest forecasts suggest UK GDP will fall in 2012 and the Chancellor will miss the borrowing target by a considerable margin. House prices fell by 2.6% year on year and in a series of surveys for July the outlook for manufacturing, services and construction is updated. Download The Saturday Economist for more details.
Back to the day job, Monday, team meeting in the morning, then Andy Gregory, regional director for the Business Growth Fund is in the office. The infrastructure for the fund is now in place and a series of investments already made will be followed by more in a healthy deal pipeline.
Tuesday, Chris Barry and David Parkin from Business Desk are in the building, we discuss the options for a media deal for SME club and the SMEx project. Looks promising.
Wednesday, Lynne McFadden from Creative England calls in to discuss the plans for SMEx. The launch is on schedule for the end of the month or thereabouts. Later, Aleksej Heinze, Associate Head (Engagement) at Salford Business School is in the office. Aleksej is undertaking pan European research on the use of social media for international business. Interesting.
Thursday, early start, breakfast with John Young from the Bank of England at Carrluccio’s. The day begins with Uova e pancetta. Excellent. The diet takes a back seat.
Friday, another day out of the office, lunch with Bill Dobie and Jeremy Scholes ex Coloroll. The rest of the day a fast read of Michael Hyatt’s “Platform – Get noticed in a noisy world”. A step by step guide for anyone with something to say! Just checking.
Saturday, working in the morning, the day starts as usual with tea, the FT, and the Economist app. The Economist leads with “Who’s afraid of Huawei?”. Huawei is the Chinese world beater in telecoms equipment. Well I didn’t know that.
Speaking of black boxes, spare a thought for Knight Capital, losing $440m in 45 minutes as a new super fast trading algorithm package misfired. Flooding the market with buy and sell orders, Thomas Joyce Chairman explained “Technology breaks” wiping out the company in the process.
No breakdowns in the afternoon. Tennis, it is a 6 – 4 win. Super fast movement on court the only plausible explanation.
Hope all is well, more news next week,
John
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