Business Flip!Flip Business Flip

For a man with an easy ability to slip into a room unnoticed, Adam Smith has acquired quite a collection of nicknames. He was known within the Department of Culture Media and Sport as “Jeremy Hunt’s brain” because, one civil servant says, Smith has a telepathic understanding of what his former boss wants and knows what to say to get it.

Some called him “the next director general of the BBC” because of his intricate understanding of media-related legislation, which, a former colleague joked, meant that he was a shoo-in for Britain’s biggest broadcasting job.

But recently, some Tory MPs have sneered and referred to him as “the not so invisible hand of Adam Smith” in reference to his more famous economist namesake and the seemingly conspiratorial nature of his email exchanges with News Corporation’s PR man Frédéric Michel.

The question many in Whitehall are asking is this: which of these three identities will emerge when Smith steps into the Leveson inquiry witness box on Thursday and is asked about Hunt’s handling of News Corporation’s planned £8bn bid to take over the whole of BSkyB? Wi

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Though noble in concept in the way it tried to give small companies access to the capital markets at a reasonable cost, it never really got going and the arid conditions of the past couple of years would probably have finished it off, even if it had succeeded in putting down deeper roots in the good times.

The interesting question now is how many of the 100 or so companies it did attract — the best known being the Suffolk brewer Adnams and the football club Arsenal — will try to move up to AIM, the Stock Exchange’s platform for smaller companies, and how many will be so disillusioned by the experience so far that they conclude trying to gain access to the capital markets is a waste of time and energy.

One suspects that most will decide on the second option. Relations between small to middling businesses and the City seem pretty sour with many of the latter saying the financial markets don’t provide them with the service they need and are not really interested in helping them. But things are pretty difficult from the broking perspective too. Firms s

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The latest sell-off, which followed a similar rout on Friday, left the FTSE 100 Index down 1.8% at its lowest closing point so far in 2012.

The turmoil was triggered after the leader of Greece’s left-wing Syriza bloc said he will try to forge a coalition government that would tear up the austerity deal that underpins the country’s 240 billion euro (£190 billion) bail-out.

Alexis Tsipras’ radical plans would likely see Greece default on its debts and be ejected from the single currency.

While it is far from certain that he will win enough support to form a government, another round of general elections next month now seems increasingly likely, casting more doubt on the future of Greece.

There were similar falls on other markets, with Germany’s Dax down nearly 2%, France’s Cac-40 nearly 3% lower and the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the United States more than 1% lower as the London market closed.

The euro was sold off on currency markets amid the worries over the future of the eurozone.

The pound now buys 1.24 euro – a three-and-a-half-year high against the single currency.

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I meet Mustafa and Kamal on Avenue Bourguiba, where they protested in January 2011 to get rid of the dictator who ruled their country with an iron-fist for 23 years. Tunisia has changed a lot since then – and celebrated its 56th independence day last week as a free nation. Both men said they will be out again to consolidate the gains of the revolution. “We couldn’t have [talked like this] before, no way,” says Mustafa, a 25-year-old originally from Tabarka in the north of Tunisia. “The only thing I could have told you is how great Ben Ali is, what a good man he is.”

But how independent is free Tunisia from the grips of its former colonial master and its allies? A demonstration last week by a group of fringe fundamentalists calling for sharia law has got some secular Tunisians in a funk again, as well as worrying the French, who are opposed to Ennahda. An opposition politician told me there are even rumours of a French-supported coup. It is clear that the next stage of western connivance in the subjugation of the Tunisian people is the widespread media and political fear over the democratically elected Ennahda party, which is Islamist. B

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The oil giant alleged in court that US authorities are using legal “privilege” to “shield documents reflecting discussions and deliberations concerning a factual issue, the amount of oil discharged”.

BP claimed it has identified 10,000 documents, out of more than 80,000, that the US has sought to suppress. A key issue in the dispute remains just how much oil had leaked from the faulty Macondo well.

The US estimated in August 2010 that 4.9 million barrels of oil, spilled into the Gulf, according to Bloomberg.

But BP pointed out that the US made at least four official estimates of differing amounts.

BP could face up to $17.6 billion (£11 billion) in pollution fines, based on the Government’s estimate of barrels spilled.

The company said since the US has brought the case for damages, it is “fundamentally unfair” for it to refuse to disclose documents.

BP has already said it will pay out $7 billion but has set aside as much as $37 billion.

The volume of business in the financial services sector grew for the eighth consecutive three-month period, and at well above the average pace during the first quarter of the year, according to the CBI/PricewaterhouseCoopers Financial Services Survey.

The data will also show the first rise in optimism among financial firms in a year, with a positive rating of 32 per cent of respondents feeling upbeat about prospects. There has also been an unexpected increase in employment in the sector, showing a balance of +19 per cent.

Of the 95 financial firms that responded to the poll, 44 per cent saw volumes rise in the quarter to March, while 21 per cent reported a fall. The resulting positive balance of 23 per cent is well above the long-run average of positive 12 per cent.

Over the next three months, companies also expect growth to accelerate. Growing income more than offset the impact of sharply rising costs. This meant firms’ profitability rose more rapidly than in the previous three quarters.

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