Business diary: Tesco's ruthless shopper pursuit

Is Tesco's pursuit of every last high street pound going just a little too far? Only asking, after seeing a customer, who had abandoned in frustration an attempt to buy a bottle of water at a self-service till, being pursuing down Wimbledon's high street by a staff member calling on nearby policemen for help to stop her. He escorted her back to the till and ordered her to complete the transaction, before an apologetic manager intervened.

The man you can trust in a crisis

We look forward to PR Week magazine's forthcoming conference, Ultimate Crisis Communications. One keynote speaker in particular should be worth listening to: David Bickerton, the director of communications at BP. Bickerton knows a thing or two about a crisis, having just been through BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. And he seems to have coped well – while the cataclysmic headlines the affair earned BP contributed to the departure of Andrew Gowers, BP's head of media relations, Bickerton kept his job.

WPP escapes the dissenters

It turns out that a tax saving isn't the only benefit of moving your company to Ireland. Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of the advertising giant WPP, has copped some flak for taking the company to Dublin to take advantage of its low corporation tax. But he seems to be avoiding public confrontations – at WPP's annual general meeting, which naturally had to be held in the company's adopted home city, there was not a single question for the board from shareholders. Londoners were much more likely to be bolshy.

Camelot boss misses out

Camelot's chief executive, Dianne Thompson, knows a thing or two about lucky numbers – hers is the organisation that runs the National Lottery, currently boasting of record sales (helped in part, no doubt, by the desperation of cash-strapped Britons). Still, her number didn't come up during the Olympics tickets draw – she completely missed out on what she wanted. And despite the organiser's protestations, we are beginning to think people actually had more chance of winning the lottery than getting a ticket to the Games.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk