There was plenty of bid speculation for investors to get their teeth into yesterday, as talk re-emerged about Sage potentially making a play for the French company Ingenico following rumours earlier in the week.

Alliance Boots has lured a former director of Home Retail to its UK health and beauty division.

Being a 'star of the future' can be the kiss of death for a promising career. But history shows that would-be Prime Ministers are far from the spotlight when their party first loses office. Matt Chorley scans the horizon

Part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group accounted for more than a quarter of all complaints made against financial services firms during the first half of the year, figures showed today.

Unlike our homes and cars, most people never change bank. Two years ago the Office of Fair Trading found 64 per cent of consumers had always had the same current account. As a result most of us are stuck with mediocre rates and rotten service.

The evaluation of a fiction rests on impact not truth," writes Stuart Kelly in a work that evaluates the impact of the many fictions, literary and otherwise, of Sir Walter Scott. Scott's impact was considerable but Kelly is aware of the problems facing this book; nobody reads Scott now, and his surviving legacy is often viewed negatively. Kelly quotes, among others, Irvine Welsh's dismissal of Scott: "Just an arse-licker to the Prince Regent".

Lloyds Banking Group received nearly 2,000 complaints a day from disgruntled customers during the first half of the year, figures showed today.

Lloyds Banking Group will shut its business in Ireland by the end of the year to draw a line under Halifax Bank of Scotland's reckless expansion in the once-booming republic.

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) is to shut down, it confirmed today.

Outlook: It may – or may not, looking at recent events across the Channel – be too early to ask the question: "Who's in charge in a financial crisis?" But the Treasury's latest proposals on banking regulation do not in any event answer it very satisfactorily.

We are indebted to Bloomberg for its update yesterday on the career of Gordon Dickson, a one-time risk officer at Halifax Bank of Scotland. Mr Dickson, who had been at the bank for 40 years, lost a fortune during the financial crisis, as HBOS succumbed to the credit crunch and had to be bailed out by Lloyds; he was left thoroughly disenchanted with the industry to which he had given his working life. But now he has a new profession that is much more fulfilling, reports Bloomberg – he is Pete the Pirate, an eyepatch-wearing children's entertainer.

Lloyds Banking Group, which is 41 per cent owned by the British taxpayer, has agreed to sell its private equity business to Coller Capital.

Lloyds Banking Group is planning to cut 650 jobs from its insurance business and close its Halifax-branded agencies, leading to the loss of a further 1,200 positions.

Q. In October 2007, I paid £197.55 for three flights from Dundee to Birmingham with Whoosh airline. To avoid credit card charges, I used my Maestro debit card. The flights were operated for Whoosh by White Eagle Aviation of Poland. On 9 December 2007, the airline suspended all flights on the route. Customers were advised to submit claims for compensation to White Eagle's managing agent in the UK, BluArrow, who would forward them to White Eagle's lawyers. I did this, but heard no more. I emailed WEA, but they did not respond. The company website had some information on compensation, so I assumed the claims were being processed. What is the situation? MP, Dundee.