Business Diary: SNP delegates eye public transport

An email arrives from theScottish National Party with the following proud title: "Big turnout for SNP conference event". The event in question turns out to be a fringe meeting where Stewart Stevenson, the former SNP transport minister, was talking about "the importance of developing skills in the passenger transport sector". No doubt Mr Stevenson is a fascinating speaker, but what does it say about the SNP's confidence in the electorate that so many of its conference delegates want to hear more about being bus or train drivers?

Trump ahead of the game on Libya

Donald Trump didn't wait for a United Nations mandate totarget Muammar Gaddafi. The US property mogul reveals that he skewered the Libyan leader a couple of years ago when Gaddafi came to New York and needed somewhere to pitch his tent. "I rented [Gaddafi] a piece of land – he paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn't let him use the land," Trump explains. "That's what we should be doing. I don't want to use the word 'screwed', but I screwed him."

Buffett in hiding from Goldman

What does Warren Buffett think about the announcement byGoldman Sachs that it may call in the preferred shares the great man bought when the investment bank needed a cash infusion at the height of the financial crisis? That he's going to take the phone off the hook and hide, that's what. "I'm going to be the Osama bin Laden of capitalism – I'm on my way to an unknown destination in Asia where I'm going to look for a cave," Buffett told reporters. "If the US Armed forces can't find Osama bin Laden in 10 years, let Goldman Sachs try to find me."

An easy way to scale the paywall

As a newspaper that remains resolutely free on the Internet, we're happy to plug an article that ran in the Toronto Global Mail yesterday, explaining how to circumvent newspapers' online paywalls. Go to the paper in question's home page, copy the headline of the article you want, paste it into the search engine of your choice and then sit back and enjoy unmetered access. The tactic works for the Wall Street Journal and the FT, but not The Times, sadly.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk