Simon English: Sir Martin's many reasons to worry

It is tempting to think that Sir Martin Sorrell gets taken way too seriously; that his position as chief (M)Ad Man makes journalists hang on his every word rather more than a dispassionate analysis of his predictive record merits.

That said, he is in possession of a huge amount of economic data before anyone else – perhaps only behind George Osborne – and Sir Martin is cleverer than Gideon and has more experience of interpreting the data.

What he said yesterday (I paraphrase) – that the advertising market just fell off a cliff, that he's worried about the future like almost never before, that there are at least four potential disaster zones, that he wants that loony Mitt Romney to be the best President of the United States – is all very concerning.

That last bit's concerning for reasons other than our immediate financial future, of course.