And therein lies the reason for the changeover: apparently the government wants to discourage the import of American gas-guzzlers and encourage ex-pat Samoans in left-hand driving Australia and New Zealand to send back home more economical second-hand cars. Seems like a challenging way to protect the environment.
It brings to mind a press trip made by our editor to Hong Kong in 1996, some 18 months before the handover to China. At a meeting with a senior official from the Hong Kong tourism authority, one reporter asked whether China (right-hand drive) would likely force Hong Kong (left-hand drive) to switch. The official thought for a minute and then concluded that this wouldn't exactly be China's first priority - but his choice of words caused much merriment: "It won't happen overnight," he said...
Oh, and our editor resigned, so that's created a bit of a kerfuffle to sort out. Took him 12 years, but he's finally going to pastures new, to be succeeded by deputy editor Melanie Stern. Details available by clicking this link.
So as Financial Director rushes headlong into its 25th anniversary issue - with Andy Sawers having been responsible for almost half of that - expect the start of the title's next quarter century to see a few changes...
]]>Eh? Here's what happened. Last Christmas, Mrs Shareholdervalues was doing all the festive food shopping at Sainsbury's. I arrived a bit later and started getting in all the festive booze. Mrs Shareholdervalues was loading up her shopping and paying at one till, while the master of the house was going through another till with all the drink.
Both of us had big bills, as you might expect, if only because we planned on doing a lot of entertaining over the holidays (and not because we eat and drink a lot ourselves, you understand). Unbeknownst to each other, we both whipped out our Nectar cards (which run off the same account) and asked for the full credit balance - some 5500 points, worth £55 - to be taken off our shopping bills.
The computer couldn't handle two near-simultaneous transactions drawing down the full balance - and allowed them both to go through! Not until we got home did we realise that we'd struck a bargain.
Fortunately, the next time we went to Sainsbury's and presented a Nectar card, we weren't arrested for committing a heinous computer crime. Instead, our till receipt showed a balance of minus 5500 points.
And so, for the last six months, every point we've earned has gone straight into repaying what was, in effect, a £55, interest-free, unauthorised overdraft.
Colleagues suggested that this had the makings of a modern-day Great Train Robbery, if you could upscale it. Not so sure. Do you know how much money you have to spend at Sainsbury's in order to earn 5500 points in the first place? There must be cheaper ways to commit a crime.
One gong, an OBE, goes to West Yorkshire Police assistant chief officer and director of finance Nigel Brook, so many congratulations to him from all at Financial Director on behalf of FDs everywhere.
In past years there's been a chunky representation from the financial services industry - a field of endeavour notable by its absence these days (despite the fact there must be someone out there who deserves royal recognition!). The nearest we get to a Square Mile honour is the one given to fashion designer Jeff Banks. Boom boom.
]]>"This is where society wants us to be. You should do the right thing and if you don't you run the risk of having your head put on a spike."Okay. We're scared. Nice doggy. Niiiice watchdoggy...]]>
Here's a tip: tune in to Mary Queen of Charity Shops (Tuesdays, 9pm, BBC2). Forget about the ridiculous management games that a band of almost entirely obnoxious over-hyped contestants try to complete. We're talking real business with this show - even if it is the charity business.
Mary Portas is a retail expert, credited with great success at West End shop Harvey Nicks. In this series, she is trying to improve the fortunes of a 'Save the Children' charity shop in Orpington. Being a charity shop, it is almost entirely staffed by lovely 'old dear' volunteers, many of whom have worked there every Tuesday morning (or whatever) for years - even decades. As you might guess, they have heard of 'change' but aren't really in favour of it.
Here's a flavour of how bad things are: weekly takings per volunteer aren't £30 a head as one volunteer suggests. No, it's more like £12.50.
Then there's the ultimate supply chain horror: the tat that people 'generously' donate to shops such as this is largely useless - unwashed bras, sodden, mud-encrusted football boots, old trousers with holes in the crotch. Lovely stuff. Worse than useless, in fact, because the shop has to pay around £90 a week to have all this crap taken away. "We could pay for a part-time therapist for £90 a week," says one volunteer as she loads an industrial-sized rubbish bin with more 'donations'.
If you missed it, watch the first episode on BBC iPlayer (quickly, though, time's running out) and make sure you see the next episodes. You'll soon forget all about Sir Alan Sugar.
* Talking about Sir Alan Sugar, we hear today he's been appointed by Gordon Brown as an 'enterprise tsar'. Um, aren't the concepts of 'enterprise' and 'tsar' rather at odds with each other???
]]>Bankruptcy disqualifies a company from being a constituent of the index - though the fact that GM's market capitalisation is now just 0.1% of the 30-share Dow's weighting won't help much, either.
GM, founded in 1908, has been a fixture of the index since 1925 (though the WSJE, which is owned by Dow Jones, says 1923), and, previously, popped in and out the index briefly during the Great War (but before the Yanks actually joined in).
Can't help wondering what Alfred Sloan would have made of this corporate giant's fall from grace...
]]>In our latest cover story we listed as one of our green shoots the fact that van-maker LDV had withdrawn its application to go into administration as it was being rescued by Malaysian group Weststar.
Oops! Despite a £5m loan from the UK government, Weststar has changed its mind and LDV is applying once again to go into administration.
]]>In other words, there is no -- repeat, no -- excuse for blaming the rules or the system for the abuse that has taken place.
There is only a requirement that MPs read the rules. Out loud. While standing in the naughty corner of their constituency offices in front of their unpaid volunteers. And after writing out a cheque to reimburse the taxpayer.
Why? Easy. Read what the rules actually say...
This comes from the Commons Green Book. What could be clearer than this? Admittedly, the rules are about 70 pages long -- but you don't have to read beyond page 8 to take in the key principles above.
But because MPs aren't generally the smartest guys in the room, the guide gives a few helpful tips, in the form of self-examining questions. Things like...
So here's a test for MPs who have fallen foul of these fairly basic principles: Are you crooked? Or just stupid?
And which of those two qualities best equips you to be a Member of Parliament?
Grrrrr!
Oh, one more thing: send in HMRC to decide whether the unreimbursed expenses claims that MPs think they're still entitled to count as taxable benefits or not. Let the taxman reach the parts that even the Daily Telegraph hasn't reached yet.
Latest news: HMRC may investigate "flipping" (read story)...
]]>The body of the email says...
"Below is the information we currently hold under your name in our contacts database. If any of these details are incorrect, missing or if you would like us to remove your information, please contact us by email at *****************@*****.org.uk"
Then come the details...
Firstname: L******** Lastname: M********Organisation: N**** ******** Limited
Job Title:
Address: *************************, County Down, ************Telephone:
Fax:
Mobile:
Email: *****************@******.co.uk
Odd. "My" details are complete wrong. I've never heard of this person. And I don't think I've ever even been to County Down.
Then, a moment later, an identical email arrives - identical apart from the fact that it has a different set of personal details, relating to someone who works in a building society in Swindon. And I know I've never been to Swindon, so that can't be me, either.
So who is sending out emails with other people's personal details - and, moreover, asking for these details to be confirmed or corrected? Step forward CIFAS, the UK's fraud prevention service!
Within 90 minutes another email arrives from CIFAS - this time a grovelling apology blaming "a mailing error" and explaining that the work contact details of three people on CIFAS's mailing list were sent out in error.
Three people? I only received two such emails. Suddenly I feel short-changed and want to find out who the third person was. Probably best not knowing...
]]>Two years ago, before we knew what a credit crunch was and when hedge fund managers still had too much money, Conde Nast tried again with a solo effort costing $100 million (yup, a hundred million bucks), Conde Nast Portfolio.
Now it, too, has bitten the dust, unable to find enough big-spending readers to attract big-spending advertisers.
Perhaps this is a contra-cyclical sign that things are about to get better - though we can but hope that it will be many, many years before business is again sexy enough for a third Conde Nast business launch.
In the face of a vast, vast Budget deficit, the government is anxious to protect what little revenue it still has. This is where you come in: "senior accounting officers" are to be given a new statutory duty to personally certify that adequate controls are in place to prepare accurate tax computations. And you'll have a £5,000 personal penalty if you screw it up.
Exactly why it seems necessary to overlay this extra bit of bureaucracy on top of the existing statutory duties to (and I paraphrase, here) not lie to the taxman and rip him off, remains stunningly unclear at the moment. Stephen Timms, the government minister who signed off the impact assessment, says that companies are expected "to take reasonable care to ensure that they declare the correct tax liability". He justifies the new measure by saying that "HMRC may not discover that care has not been taken" (so another signature on another piece of paper is going to help, yeah?) "or the accountabilities within the company may be insufficient" - which we dare to suggest seems a little unlikely given that the measure is aimed at large companies (roughly, those with turnover greater than £22.8m or more than 250 employees).
The requirement is apparently based on the much-derided US Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. So that's good news. The Treasury has worked out that while there are around 2 million companies, only around 60,000 are big enough to be subject to the new rule. So that's a relief. But most of these are companies within groups, so there's only around 1,600 to 2,000 groups involved. Phew. But if you work for smaller companies, don't get too smug: if the scheme (which costs the government virtually nothing and so has no downside) is successful with big companies, small ones might later get clobbered with it, too.
Oh, and by the way, the measure is expected to raise £140m. Over four years. Which seems like a surprising small yet precise number, to us. Still, when the Budget deficit has more zeroes than a Zimbabwean fiver, every penny counts, I guess.