Business Diary: AA missing the point on fuel tax

Day three, and there's no sign of any let-up in the enthusiasm for telling the Government what it should be doing when it comes to tax and spending. The AA is the latest, with its calculation that falling petrol sales last year, compared to pre-credit crunch volumes, slashed £1bn from what the Treasury could have got from duty on petrol in 2009. The AA's argument is that if you lowered taxes you'd sell more petrol and generate more revenue. Which rather misses the point: if petrol sales have fallen by the amount the AA says they have, that's thoroughly good news for global warming.

Honesty is best policy at DSGi

Diary has to admire the honesty of John Browett, chief executive of Curry's owner, DSGi. After showing the press a clip from an internal video yesterday about how the retailer has greatly improved its TV repair service over the past two years, he said: "Please be gentle with us when we are talking about being rubbish beforehand. I know it makes a good quote..." We hope that's gentle enough for the good Mr Browett?

Bono's investing not so elevated

We're sorry to say it looks like the lifts at Bono's Elevation Partners are, well, on the way down. The private equity firm started by the rock star and campaigner along with the likes of Roger McNamee and various members of the tech glitterati is cutting a number of "investment partners" and appears to be looking at retrenchment. Performance has been rather less than stunning. Of course, it's not alone in that in these difficult economic times, but perhaps Bono would be better off sticking to what he is, admittedly, really rather good at?

It seems PwC gets the point

Well, it seems that someone in PricewaterhouseCoopers' public relations department has got their brain switched on (a rarity in the PR world, it has to be said). An invite to a PwC winetasting arrives in Diary's inbox, with the carrot of 40 of the firm's movers and shakers. But the postscript says it all: "P.S. To save anyone checking, July1 is a rest day in the World Cup."

businessdiary@independent.co.uk