Business Diary: October 2

He told an audience of business people that when writing a book about his time as Chancellor, he paid a visit to the Treasury. “I saw that all the statistics on which I’d based my decisions when I was Chancellor had changed.

“When I was Chancellor I was constantly told, ‘This is the deepest recession since the 1920s and 30s’, it turned out to have been one of the shallowest recessions since the Second World War and it was not nearly as deep as that of the 1980s.”

He referenced former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan: “That’s why Harold Macmillan once said that being Chancellor of the Exchequer was rather like trying to catch a train using last year’s timetable. The statistics are always altering and sometimes you have to use your gut instinct.”

During his time as Chancellor, in the early 1990s, he had to deal with rampant inflation and ‘Black Wednesday’ – when Britain quit the European Exchange Rate Mechanism – the precursor to the euro.

In 1991, Lord Lamont made a remark about spotting “green shoots of recovery”.

Speaking at the Sheffield Star Business Awards, he said: “It was absolutely ridiculed at the time. But now when you look back on the statistics it was pretty accurate and followed after I’d said that with 66 quarters of unlimited, uninterrupted growth.

“I have no doubt we will get out of this recession. I have no doubt that it will end. People who talk about it being an everlasting recession should not get too much attention paid to them.”

Charity’s Evolution

WHEN Nick Toft, managing director of Leeds-based Evolution Design and Marketing, looked into signing up for a Ben Nevis fundraising climb, he decided to go one step further in his efforts to help the charity in question.

He realised Lease of Life needed a new website to promote the newly formed charity and make people aware of the events it stages. So Evolution, a web design and internet services company, is providing the charity with a new website worth £1,000 free of charge.

Lease of life was formed this year by Ryan Bartlett who was diagnosed with and overcame testicular cancer. The charity helps young adults and children during treatment or rehabilitation from cancer. It promotes sport, exercise and physiotherapy to provide rehabilitation.

Nick said: “My mother is currently battling the disease and the care and support she has had from various charitable groups and hospital staff has be overwhelming. Ryan is clearly very passionate about his charity and we are delighted to be able to assist him with the creation of a new website.”

A boring press release

Diary couldn’t help but chuckle when a press release promoting Boring 2012 landed in its inbox - and presumably this was the desired effect.

The “annual celebration of the obscure and mundane” has a new sponsor apparently, Twelve Thirty Eight, described in the release as “a largely unknown PR agency”.

Presentation topics at previous Boring conferences in London have included ‘Extracts from the first ten years of Which? Magazine’, ‘Polite small talk’, ‘Car park roofs’, ‘Electric hand dryers’ and ‘The sounds of vending machines’, the release says.

The line up this year, we are assured, will be pretty similar.

Hamish Thompson, managing director of Twelve Thirty Eight, said: “As an agency, some of our proudest work has focused on cucumbers, six-pack holders, clothes pegs, adhesive tape and a few other things that I can’t recall at the moment. The conference is a natural fit for our brand.”

Boring 2012 will be held on a Sunday in late November at York Hall in East London. Further details, the press release says, will be confirmed shortly. Diary can’t wait.

House party

IT’S not your average birthday giveaway.

York-based housebuilder Persimmon celebrated its 40th birthday with an unusual and life-changing competition: charities from across the country competed to win a £250,000 house.

Complete with garage, carpets and blinds, the three-bedroom house in Andover was won by a Leicestershire charity, the Harley Staples Cancer Trust.

The charity was founded by Katherine and Jamie Staples following the death of their son, Harley, in November 2009 from a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia.

It was chosen from 24 charities across the UK – with the remaining 23 charities each scooping a £6,000 donation.

“Our whole company has got behind this competition,” said Persimmon chief executive Mike Farley.

“It’s wonderful to celebrate our 40th birthday by giving something back to smaller charities who often miss out on funding.”