Comment: Cable should stop picking needless fights

From “declaring war” on media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to accusing his Tory coalition colleagues of being “ruthless, calculating and very tribal”, he has earned the dubious distinction of being the Lib-Dems rottweiler; a sort of Norman Tebbitt in sandals.

Now he is taking shots at the Bank of England for what he calls its “capital Taleban”, accusing it of holding back lending to small businesses by insisting the banks raise their level of reserves.

Cable is in danger of sending out confusing messages from government. On the one hand the banks are ordered to build up their capital cushions as a defence against further shocks to the system, while on the other they are told they must lend more to businesses.

The Bank of England is caught in the middle of this contradictory approach which is also testing the credibility of the new regulatory regime.

Cable hopes Mark Carney, the new governor of the Bank of England, will rein in what the Treasury rather undiplomatically refers to as a “jihadist” tendency in Threadneedle Street. He appears from his early actions to be more accommodating of a flexible and softer approach to monetary policy, an attitude which he will also need to include in his dealings with the Treasury and government ministers.

ScottishPower bullish about prospects

ThE utility companies have become the new bankers – the businesses the public loves to hate.

It’s a reputation garnered on the back of huge profits and ever-increasing power bills.

It is an argument they will never win whatever they say about the reality of tight margins, higher wholesale energy costs, the need to meet tougher environmental targets and invest in infrastructure. Without wishing to appear an apologist for any company found profiteering or making excuses, or paying its executives top dollar while raising customer bills, there is something in what the energy firms tell us.

ScottishPower, part of the Spanish company Iberdrola, is a case in point: its profits at the Ebitda level fell but the company is investing heavily in transmission and distribution, creating thousands of jobs in the process. It is performing well across all divisions.

Its chief corporate officer Keith Anderson bullishly talks about ScottishPower helping the economy get back on its feet, but in exchange he wants a stable regulatory regime.

He says he understands public outrage over higher bills, but he points to 400,000 extra customers as evidence that the company must be doing something right.

Battle brewing between BrewDog and watchdog

ThEy say any publicity is good publicity. Maybe it’s the mantra adopted by the guys running the BrewDog brewing company in Fraserburgh who have been called upon by the Advertising Standards Authority to remove swear words on the firm’s website that may cause offence.

BrewDog responded with a message of defiance, and fans of the maverick company resorted to Twitter to offer support.

This is a difficult area for the regulators. After all, movies use the same language with impunity and we call that entertainment.