Business Diary: Clegg ventures into enemy territory

To the CBI shindig, where Britain's political leaders staged their own X Factor contest yesterday. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg faced more wrath from the business world's Simon Cowells than his rivals, though give him credit for having the guts to tell some of Britain's wealthiest people that he favours new taxes on wealth. One somehow feels the delegate who told Mr Clegg that Gordon Brown had showed more vision for business wasn't being kind to either of them.

It's your own time you're wasting, PM

Still, the Prime Minister didn't get a chance to shine. Each leader took questions after their speeches, but CBI chairman Helen Alexander told the audience there wasn't long to interrogate the PM following his oration. Mr Brown protested he had plenty of time, but Ms Alexander was worried about her schedule, not the PM's, and allowed just four minutes for questions.

Stuff the politicians, buy my groceries

Sales pitch of the day, however, went to Sir Stuart Rose. The M&S boss had plenty to say about the economy, but he couldn't resist taking time out from weightier matters to flog his dinner for a tenner campaign to the assembled business leaders.

A marketing man's worst nightmare

As speculation mounts on who will bid for Cadbury and when, we like Hereisthecity.com's contribution to the debate. Combining some of the brands owned by Cadbury with those of its suitors' products makes some hilariously rude new products, it points out. For example, take the S from Skittles (a Mars product) with the & M's from M&M's. It gets you to S&M's. The others are, well, not suitable for publication in a family newspaper.

We can't even compete on corruption

We're big fans of Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog, but how has Britain managed to come in as the 17th least corrupt country in its latest league table, a drop of just one place on last year? This after the MPs' expenses scandal. If we've only fallen a place after that, just what is going on in the rest of the world?

Number of the day: £6.84

The typical weekly pocket money for a British child, according to research from the London School of Economics.