Economy

Ryanair’s gobbledygook, Maoism in the Premier League and @Jack’s next moves

Planet Business: U-turns on Downing Street and an exit in Silicon Valley

Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson shoot the breeze as Johnson poses in an electric vehicle branded ‘Small Business Saturday’. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP

Laura Slattery's face
Laura Slattery
Sat Dec 4 2021 - 05:29

Image of the week: Behind the wheel

In 2018, Boris Johnson was reported as saying "f**k business" in response to their politely expressed alarm at the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. But who remembers anything that happened in 2018? In Downing Street, they seem to be counting on the electorate forgetting what happened 10 minutes ago. So here's Johnson, the man currently entrusted to steering Global Britain to the sunlit uplands, segueing shamelessly to the promotion of Small Business Saturday by testing an electric vehicle, while chancellor Rishi Sunak explains through the door that he might need to find a charging point somewhere between Westminster and Peppa Pig World. He doesn't look like the sort of prime minister who's been on Top Gear twice, but then again Johnson is famously fond of U-turns.

In numbers: Travel turbulence

4

Times that the word "nonsense" appeared in a Ryanair press statement reacting to the new rules on air travel introduced by the Government on Tuesday.

5

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Times that the word “gobbledygook” was used in the same statement, two of them in the one sentence.

€2 billion

Sum wiped from Ryanair’s stock market valuation on November 26th, as emerging news of the Omicron variant spooked investors. Its share price has been up and down since then.

Getting to know: Angus Kinnear

Leeds United chief executive Angus Kinnear is a confident kind of guy. After a spell as Arsenal's director of marketing, the former Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola marketer moved across London to the managing director position at West Ham before heading north in 2017, back when Leeds was languishing in the Championship, the second tier of English football. Promotion to the Premier League in 2020 appears to have bolstered his desire to share his thoughts.

In programme notes published this week ahead of Leeds’s match against Crystal Palace, Kinnear reacted to a fan-led review of football governance by comparing calls for a transfer levy and an independent regulator to Maoism and the Great Chinese Famine. “Enforcing upon football a philosophy akin to Maoist collective agriculturalism (which students of The Great Leap Forward will know culminated in the greatest famine in history) will not make the English game fairer, it will kill the competition which is its very lifeblood.”

But will millions die of starvation as a result, Angus?

The list: Dorsey discourse

Jack Dorsey, aka @Jack, resigned as chief executive of Twitter for the second time this week, saying it was time for him to leave the social media company he co-founded back in 2006. But what might Dorsey do next?

1. His other day job. Dorsey is also chief executive of payments company Square (soon to be renamed Block) and it is worth considerably more than Twitter anyway.

2. Crypto business. Dorsey is bullish on bitcoin.

3. Philanthropy. Having made much of his wealth through Square, he pledged last year to start giving it away through stock donations.

4. Fashion design. Beanie-loving Dorsey cuts a certain kind of dash. Before he co-founded Twitter, he thought about quitting tech to become a clothing designer. He later took classes at San Francisco design school Apparel Arts.

5. Meditation and yoga. Dorsey is a dedicated yogi with a wellness regime strict enough to shame any self-respecting Instagram influencer.

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