Business Diary: M&S loses ethics executive to Primark

Primark is so keen to enhance its ethical credentials that it has poached Libby Annat from Marks & Spencer. Annat, Primark's new senior ethical trade manager, may be able to provide some insight into just how many factories the two chains actually share. M&S has said just one clothing factory in 600 also supplies Primark, but industry sources say that including footwear and fashion accessories the number is 37.

Bring on the Ryanair bashing

This is getting a little tedious, but Ryanair has made another "light-hearted" bid to settle its legal row with easyJet's Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who is suing it for libel. Michael O'Leary, the Ryanair chief executive, wants Sir Stelios to take him on in a sumo bout. We hate to say it, but the thought of seeing O'Leary duffed up in public is almost more alluring than seeing him given a tough time in the courts.

The economists that no one noticed

Bless the 20 economic historians who wrote to The Guardian yesterday to give their views on the "when to cut the debt" debate. They no doubt expected to make a splash, having seen two similar letters to other papers generate plenty of headlines. But the previous letter writers were a little more eminent and no one seems to have noticed yesterday's missive.

ITV's football night proves to be a loser

Not an auspicious precursor to ITV's annual results yesterday. On Tuesday the channel, now investing in sport, screened the friendly between Brazil and the Republic of Ireland. The match got just 3.3 million viewers and was trounced by the riveting Holby City on BBC1.

A real challenge for the branding experts

The marketing firm Silk Pearce has won a mandate to create a new brand for a key client. It has to get a website up and running and develop a stand-out advertising campaign to run on the London Underground. The customer in question? The London Sperm Bank. Our suggestion is simple: this is the bank where the customer always comes first.

Number of the day: 10bn

The number of "tweets" that Twitter is expected to hit this week, up from five billion only four months ago.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk