91Èȱ¬

It's a busy time for companies issuing half-year results. Loaded with underlying profits, EBITDA figures and exceptional items, it's sometimes easy to forget what it is that companies are selling.

So perhaps we can take a step back from results for one company that's selling a rather controversial product - British American Tobacco. It reported its half year figures this week, with group revenue up by 24% to £6,780m.

One striking aspect of these results is that it's hard to find any evidence of sales in either Britain or America. Indeed, that never was a strength for the company.

It's well established that the big tobacco merchants have turned their attention to countries where there is less of a health kick against the weed, including less of a tax crackdown and fewer advertising and marketing restrictions.

BAT sells in about 180 markets, and according to analyst Charles Stanley, about 65% of its profits and volumes now originate in high-growth emerging markets.

It was mainly the recession that saw the volume of cigarette sales fall in Russia, and the company saw less product going up in smoke in Japan, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

But look where it's growing: Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, and the Gulf states. Total volume of cigarettes: 349 billion.

Further down the road, that represents a big health bill.

And according to Charles Stanley - with analysis that strips out any ethical consideration - the best prospect for growth is in Indonesia, where BAT has just bought a big stake in the fourth-largest tobacco producer.

"Indonesia has very few tobacco restrictions and is the only country in Asia that has not signed the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control," according to the analyst's note.

For some businesses, keen to show customers their credentials as responsible and ethical traders, that might be a place to avoid.

Not in this industry, though. According to Charles Stanley, Indonesia is one place that "BAT is likely to remain on the lookout for further bolt-on acquisitions".

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• - What's this?

Ouch. The story about the demise of the Dunfermline Building Society is not a comfortable one for participants to hear again.

And the telling of it by the Commons' Scottish affairs select committee this morning packs quite a few punches.

It's no surprise that the management take a large share of the blame. Former chairman Jim Faulds had already taken that on the chin, when he gave evidence to the committee.

But there are serious charges that the directors failed to tell the society's members what they were up to. In the case of a new computer system the Dunfermline was developing, that looks like a straight lie, even if that's the kind of non-parliamentary language MPs avoid.

The building society Members Review said there was "excellent progress" on that, when there was anything but. It was out of control, with spiralling budgets.

That meant a £9 million write-off, which is a small sum compared with the amounts of risky investment in securitised assets.

That includes those bundles of loans that others had agreed, often lacking the normal standards of credit checking that you'd expect of a traditional old building society.

Mr Faulds has been incensed at the suggestion this was "toxic" or "US sub-prime lending". He also points to the risks rapidly built up from 2002 until 2005 being rapidly managed down.

And he has claimed that the "political spin" put on the £1.6bn of the Dunfermline's riskier assets shouldered by the UK Government as part of the collapse and takeover is actually made up of lending that can be expected to be paid off normally.

This is all water under the Forth Bridge for the former managers of Dunfermline.

The criticisms of the Financial Services Authority - the lead regulator - are more powerful, because it's still at work, and in a big way.

The forced collapse of the Dunfermline on Saturday 28 March was decided by regulators, using a new law. And MPs say the law was applied without the building society at the heart of this story being properly informed about the standards expected of it - one of the accusations hotly contested by the regulator.

Warnings leading up to the worst part of the credit crunch, from September last year, were too vague and scatter-gun, sent to all chief executives throughout the financial sector rather than being specific. The Dunfermline was not given clear direction as to what was expected.

Part of the confusion coming out of this is what could have been done to save it. The Scottish Government was willing to step in with £25 million of capital injection, allied to £30 million that the Building Societies Assocation was willing to table as part of its attempt to shore up the sector's reputation.

There was a suggestion that £60 million would be enough - strengthening the capital base on which lending is calculated, and which is a measure of the balance sheet's robustness. But in the pressure on all these players earlier this year, there was a lack of clarity as to whether that would keep regulators happy.

Having indicated £60m would do the trick, it was then thought that would only be a short-term solution, lasting perhaps two years. And by that time, an impatient Chancellor, Alistair Darling, seems to have concluded that he wasn't interested in such sticking plasters. The result was that he took on a risky loan book of £1.6bn.

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• - What's this?

What's the Scottish Government's game plan in its campaign to save Diageo jobs in Kilmarnock? I ask this out of genuine puzzlement.

One can usually see the strategic direction Alex Salmond takes. But in this case, it's not clear.

It's easier to understand how the campaign came about.

First, politicians were antagonised by being kept in the dark until the workforce were told about the Johnnie Walker bottling plant closure.

Second, whisky is a product over which Scottish politicians can hope to exert some influence, as it can't go elsewhere.

And third, Diageo is proposing job losses not from its financial weakness, but from a position of corporate strength, if not dominance.

If the campaign is unsuccessful, and the closure goes ahead, it would make the Scottish Government look weak.

If you're an opposition leader, you can express regret that those in power failed to save jobs.

But if you're in power, where do you turn? To attack the next company saying it wants to close a plant?

There's been a that globally-mobile international business won't take kindly to being beaten up for wanting to restructure, and the attacks on Diageo will be watched by others.

My hunch is that failure of the campaign would lead to a promise to Ayrshire of special economic attention and funding, which it claims it has long deserved anyway.

On the other hand, if the campaign is successful, and saves Kilmarnock jobs (Holyrood ministers are not saying how many) there are big consequences. It will have to be at quite a price. And St Andrew's House doesn't have much money for the kind of subsidy required.

Diageo reckons on saving £20m a year for a £100m investment, so it would be quite a big subsidy if the drinks giant's mind is to be changed - and all for a strategy in which the company is unlikely to have much faith.

Second, if the campaign is successful, what does that say about the next factory closure announcement?

Everyone is going to want a piece of the action, with the first minister literally taking up megaphone diplomacy with the country's major employers.

Will he put public money on the line for every factory closure as unemployment climbs?

Third, if the campaign is successful, what will the consequences be elsewhere?

Scottish Enterprise, on behalf of the campaign alliance, is drawing up a "three-centre solution".

That means Kilmarnock (which is losing 700 jobs), Port Dundas distillery and cooperage in Glasgow (200 jobs to go) and Leven in Fife (more than 300 jobs being created with the planned new investment).

Let's look at Port Dundas first. I'm told the case for closure is hard to resist. Compared with Cameronbridge distillery in Fife, which would take up the grain spirit production, it's considerably more expensive for water and for energy.

Will the Scottish Government sacrifice Port Dundas if it can do something for Kilmarnock, and can it afford to do so when the historic distillery sits in the Glasgow North-East constituency where there's a close-fought Westminster by-election this autumn?

On Kilmarnock, Diageo's case is that it has become inefficient (presumably because the company failed to invest and modernise), and also that the company needs to cut bottling capacity.

The need to cut capacity won't change, even with the help of public subsidy.

So suppose Scottish Enterprise comes up with a plan for a greenfield, new-build, more efficient bottling plant near Kilmarnock.

That would mean hundreds of jobs saved, but surely not all of them. And it would mean cuts in capacity elsewhere.

Elsewhere, in Diageo bottling terms, means either Leven in Fife or Shieldhall in Glasgow, where 550 people work and where Johnnie Walker is already bottled.

Leven is represented by SNP MSP Tricia Marwick, and Shieldhall by one Nicola Sturgeon.

What do these colleagues of Alex Salmond think about the prospect of Kilmarnock taking jobs from their constituencies?

Tricia Marwick tells me she's relieved the Diageo strategic review has led to a commitment to the Leven plant.

And the prospect of more than 300 jobs is only a prospect. The people of Leven don't want Kilmarnock jobs to be lost.

But if their existing jobs come under threat, then you can be sure there will be a campaign in Fife to save them.

Which side will the Scottish Government take then?

The pressure is on Labour as well. Des Browne, MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, is making much of the running on the Kilmarnock campaign.

But if the former Defence Secretary is successful, it means some difficult explaining for his Labour colleagues in Fife and Clackmannanshire, where a new cooperage is currently planned as part of the Diageo plan.

And what was the meaning of Annabel Goldie's presence at the Kilmarnock protest? As Scottish Conservative leader, does this mean the prospective Tory government is now on the march against corporate restructuring?

With more than 10,000 people on the streets of Kilmarnock at the weekend, the campaign has momentum, and it's caught the public and media imagination as the rallying point for a fight-back against rising unemployment.

Yes, Diageo has mishandled this, and it has a fight on its hands.

But underlying that, the future of this fight is as much between political parties, and between east and west.

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• - What's this?

At the high point of the Year of 91Èȱ¬coming, should we be worried or surprised that Scotland's tourist industry has taken a cold dip in the North Sea?

A bit worried, but not surprised. A decline of more than a million trips, when comparing last year with 2007, shows signs of the early stage of economic downturn taking its toll.

That was before the sterling zone began to see the benefits of more competitive prices in the euro and dollar zones.

It didn't have the benefit of the 91Èȱ¬coming marketing (assuming there is some). And it was probably affected by one of last summer's biggest concerns being the rocketing price of fuel.

These factors should be helping Scottish and British tourism this year, though there's a warning attached - fuel prices and sterling have been moving in an unhelpful direction over more recent months.

However, with many tourism businesses having tight margins, the loss of £156m from the collective tourist spend last year has been hurting some. The lucrative business tourism market was down particularly sharply, by 14%.

Those who made the visit seemed to like it. A satisfaction survey found business visitors rated their trips quite highly - 80% "very satisfied" was 21 points up on a poor showing in 2007.

Others, particularly at the value end of the market, seem this year to be having a pretty healthy peak season, much of it from Brits remaining close to home on "staycations".

It's looking good for camp sites and those who benefit from day trips.

And while international arrivals were down, outbound air departures from Britain are down by more - 16% in the early part of this year.

How does that compare with competing tourism markets? The World Tourism Organisation recently reported that tourism arrivals rose by 2% last year. But it added that the growth was in the early part of the year, and there was a dip in the second half.

The overall effect was a little growth around the world, with the exception of Europe, which stagnated. Business was at its best in the Middle East, up 11% - which, let's be honest, isn't a conventional competitor with Scotland for the tourist dollar, euro or dinar.

So Scotland's tourism problems have to be seen in the context of the global challenge.

But the downturn does make it particularly tough to hit the Scottish Government target of growing the tourism industry by 50% between 2005 and 2015.

The setback to that ambition may help explain why VisitScotland was so unhelpful in making these latest figures public.

If targets are to be meaningful, this is one that may require a new dose of realism.

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• - What's this?

Could Lloyds Banking Group have plans to flog off Bank of Scotland?

As rumours go, this is at the mischievous end of the spectrum.

But it stems from the pressure being on the merged Lloyds-TSB-Halifax-Bank of Scotland to scale itself down, and it has yet to say how it intends to do so.

The biggest threat comes from Brussels, where European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has been setting out new guidelines on how to maintain competition in the banking marketplace while around 80 banks are steered out of trouble with their governments' aid.

Having confronted Germany's Commerzbank, she has already made clear that Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are in her sights for special attention.

That's both for their market share and, allied to that, the support they're getting from the UK government.

Moral hazard

She wants to make sure the support of governments does not mean unfair competition for banks that are not needing bailed out.

She wants to ensure financial stability as a first priority, without losing sight of the importance of effective competition.

And there's concern that the bail-out of banks that are "too big to fail" - or indeed, any bank - creates a problem of moral hazard, in that such bankers can afford to be reckless.

So banks will have to be stress tested.

They have to set out their plans to scale down where they are too large.

They will be barred from aggressive pricing or marketing funded by state aid.

Right price

The banks' owners have to share with taxpayers much of the burden of restructuring.

And they have to get out of government dependency within five years, or else face takeover or winding up.

In a recent speech, Kroes said: "The likelihood of significant divestments by RBS and Lloyds is strong."

For that, RBS was already on the case, having announced it plans to shed about a fifth of its assets, when it can find buyers, and at the right price.

A sale of much of its Asian operation, built up by ABN Amro, is likely to be announced soonish.

But retreating from its global reach won't address the potential RBS has to play too dominant a role as a lender in the British economy.

Chief executive Stephen Hester met Commissioner Kroes last week to explain what is planned.

Split them

Lloyds has said much less about its plans for scaling down, beyond finance director Tim Tookey saying in May that non-core operations would be scaled down in time.

It talks about a "strong plan to exit state aid".

Just how much it needs to shed is being negotiated through the UK government, which is responsible to the European Commission on behalf of the banks it regulates and partly owns.

A senior official at the Commission said on Thursday that the restructuring plans from two very large British banks have been filed in recent weeks, and await approval.

What these banks will hope is that selling off marginal, under-performing and non-core assets will avoid a ruling that would split them more fundamentally.

That's particularly important to Lloyds' management, who have staked their reputations on the value added by a very risky merger that by-passed competition rules, and for whom a forced de-merger would surely be the last straw.

One indication that divestment process is under way is a report today that LBG's London-based asset management outfit, Insight Investment, is the subject of bids from potential buyers.

The company wasn't commenting on the report.

Sticky and expensive

But it may offer some relief for those at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, the asset management wing of Lloyds TSB, operating out of Edinburgh, which could as easily have been getting sold off.

The concern about these giant banks' dominance of British lending extends to governments in London and Edinburgh.

The chancellor said on Thursday that he is to call in bank chiefs over the next two weeks, demanding to know why lending to business remains sticky and expensive.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has raised concerns about access to credit from the traditional Scottish lenders.

Clydesdale Bank this week said it was making £1bn more money available for loans over the next 12 months, specially aimed at small and medium sized firms.

But with RBS and Bank of Scotland trying to rebuild their balance sheets and get control of lending risk, the council - chaired by former RBS chairman Sir George Mathewson - is recommending to ministers that they get proactive in trying to bring other lenders into the Scottish market.

According to minutes of the most recent CEA meeting, Alex Salmond was told: "There is a need to rebuild the Scottish banking sector by attracting institutions which do not currently have large operations in Scotland and may be willing to lend in more innovative ways."

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• - What's this?

If there's one pattern that seems clear about Scotland in this recession, it looks like it's lock-step link to the fortunes of the wider UK economy.

It hasn't been hit by the Scottish banks' crisis as much as some feared.

But nor has its manufacturing been protected from the damage being inflicted on the English production sector.

The figures for gross domestic product released today by the Scottish Government show the Scottish economy falling by 2.4% in the first quarter of the year, and by 1.2% in the year to March.

That's very nearly the same as the UK.

The only difference is the basis for measuring output.

Striking differences

Comparing like-with-like on a measure economists recognise as Gross Value Added, the UK economy did marginally worse, with a 2.5% first quarter fall.

The sectoral differences are striking.

The public sector, including health and education, registered a little growth.

Yet despite big injections of public money, education 'output' has been in decline for five years.

An analysis by economists at Glasgow University's Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) says education is now 4% below its output peak.

The health sector continues to grow quite strongly, though the method behind its output figures is being reviewed.

In the private sector, utilities grew.

Tourist haunts

While services declined much less than production, but if you look at sub-sectors, note how bad it was for financial services, down by 4.4% in the first quarter, and business services, by nearly as much.

The CPPR reckoning highlights a fall in non-banking financial services of more than 25% from its peak.

That is hard to square with the relative robustness of asset management and insurance.

But then, some of these Scottish GDP figures need to be treated with some pinches of statistical salt.

Hospitality, for instance, has registered decline since 2001 - and although it is almost certainly facing a challenging recession, it doesn't feel like a long-term decline when you go to popular tourist haunts.

The Government statisticians admit their figures can be skewed, and are hard to disentangle from UK data.

We'll learn more about those UK figures on Friday, when the second quarter data are published.

Health warning

These, too, have to carry a health warning, after the first quarter figures were revised sharply downwards as more evidence of the recession's damage came in.

While recovery may not be as fast as some would like, the developing economy story is moving so fast that today's Scottish figures don't tell us all that much that we need to know about the future.

More significant is the buoyancy of Scottish retail spend, up 6.6% last month on June last year.

Among the strong product lines has been salads, summer berries, barbecue meat, flip-flops and anti-bacterial handwash to help fend of swine flu.

One explanation for that, which it's easy to overlook, is that last June was blighted by worrying inflation and a low level of consumer confidence - months before we realised how serious the financial crisis would become.

And CBI Scotland's survey of manufacturing finds a very mixed picture suggesting the bottom may soon be reached.

Order books are still in decline, but not falling as fast as earlier this year.

Severe cuts

Stocks have been run down, which could be an opportunity to restock, or it may mean problems in the supply chain.

An important message coming out of the employer organisation's survey is about exports.

Sterling's weakness over the course of the recession should have helped more than it has.

Export prospects and prices look increasingly depressed, and export prices look particularly weak.

The recovery will have to feature a significant, if not decisive, level of export demand - as domestic consumption has to be constrained in the medium to long-term, and as government spending faces some severe cuts.

So those manufacturers' concerns about overseas orders should be concerns for all of us.

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• - What's this?

The latest retail news from Next and Morrison's offers two more sources of optimism about a return to growth.

On Wednesday, we hear the latest figures from the Scottish Retail Consortium, which have shown a striking resilience in the face of recession over recent months.

But there's a longer-running problem for retail.

It preceded recession and will continue long after it's gone.

Indeed, concern about business survival through the downturn and about jobs may be masking an issue that was on its way up the political agenda.

It's the high street, and what can be done to sustain or re-energise it.

Record vacancies

People want to know why their town centres have become dowdy and dull, and the range of shopping choices is being reduced.

These same people are often the ones who buy their groceries, and much else besides, at out-of-town supermarkets, and don't seem to see the connection.

But they do want something done about it.

One impact of recession is an increase in vacancies.

According to the British Retail Consortium, they began the year at 7%, and with the help of Woolworths' closure, they are on track to hit 15% by year end.

Some town centres already record vacancy rates of nearly 40%.

'Tipping point'

Recession is also hitting jobs.

The BRC cites figures from March this year showing 73,000 fewer jobs in retail, a reduction of one in 40 since the previous March.

These are not highly skilled jobs, but they are important entry level jobs for school leavers and part-time or unskilled adults, particularly women.

The BRC has produced a report that goes beyond the recession, with proposals for what might be done to save the nation's high streets from decline.

"Declining high streets are at best unattractive, discouraging shoppers; at worst threatening," says its report into the shopping street for the 21st Century.

Better to tackle them when they are still approaching a 'tipping point' than wait until they are in decline.

But there is a controversial observation about planning - that it tends to fudge the question of a hierarchy of towns' high streets, pretending that they can all be sustained, rather than putting effort into sustaining only some to a higher standard.

'Blighting towns'

The BRC said planners have "fudged the question of hierarchies in order to avoid blighting towns not chosen as centres of development".

But, it added "this has led to uncertainty and missed opportunities as each town attempts to provide the same offer, and fails to build on its particular strengths in meeting the needs of its community".

Crime and safety is one of the headings under which they suggest improvements.

The other theme that comes through strongly as a retailers' concern is that metered parking is seen as a cash cow for councils, and not as a means to encourage good shopping experiences.

And retailers want a relaxation of the common curfews on delivery trucks.

There are ideas in this report that may be of use for wider application.

Trams debacle

Begun in 2006, Dundee's retail awards scheme is one.

Edinburgh has helped itself through the trams debacle with a special effort to tackle fly posting and graffiti, with information 'ambassadors' to help tourists and workers find their way round the town and roadworks.

Warwick's local council funded a free, and then subsidised, bus service to bring workers from a nearby business park to the high street at lunchtime.

Chester has had a positive impact on footfall by making parking "free after three".

Every year on 4 July, Swansea celebrates 'independents day' to raise the profile of independent traders.

Coventry's city managers boosted its shopping streets with 50% of rental costs for new, independent businesses, and 25% rental subsidy to support the long-term retention of existing ones.

Two catches

All interesting ideas. But two catches. The list of proposals from the retailers puts much of the onus for improvement on local authorities, and councils are facing a very tight spending future, with the BRC wanting to see business tax cut further.

The other is the complete absence of any discussion of the effect on the 21st century high street of supermarkets - whether out-of-town or closer to the town centre.

The BRC includes the big supermarkets within its membership.

But to pretend the impact of planning decisions for supermarkets is unrelated to the market share being taken from small independent shops is extraordinary to the point of being laughable.

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• - What's this?

One warning this morning is that the fallout from the credit crunch is the financial equivalent of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Another says that swine flu - with its impact on lost productivity and lower discretionary spending - could substantially knock back economic recovery.

But another warning caught my eye this weekend, with more substantial long-term significance for the Scottish economy.

It comes from Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Edinburgh University, and it's about the effectiveness and competitiveness of Scotland's schools.

The fact that it appears on page 21 of the Times Education Supplement Scotland (TESS), on what must be the week of the year with the fewest educationists taking any interest, underplays its significance.

What he argues is not wholly new.

What fascinates me is that he's the one saying it.

Prof Paterson has taken dog's abuse in the past for defending Scotland's comprehensive schooling system against the changes being introduced south of the border.

He was sceptical about driving more diversity into the schools system. The fear from self-described liberals like him was that "it would create the worst kind of competition and would allow invidious selection to be introduced".

The emphasis on core skills, it was argued, would destroy children's confidence.

And after 10 years of devolution, with the different parts of the UK able to go their own ways on education policy, what's the evidence?

That Scotland and Wales have improved a bit, but that England has improved much faster.

Not without its problems, of course, including pressure on teachers and pupils, and with the claims of competition sapping morale. But it has done so without the feared effects on inequality and segregation.

Does it matter that England's education system is closing the gap with Scotland's?

If Scotland is to be an attractive place for businesses to locate for the quality of the workforce, and for universities to excel, then that long-running competitive advantage would have depressing effects on Scotland's already-sluggish economic growth path, and could prove hard to claw back.

The front page of TESS this week reports on concerns about drift and the loss of a lack of vision in Scotland's curriculum reforms.

Taken together, there are implications for Scottish society and the competitiveness of the Scottish economy that can't be ignored.

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• - What's this?

Strikes are leading the Scottish news tonight; Royal Mail, a refinery workers ballot, Aberdeen buses and environmental cleansing operatives - or binmen.

A sign of the times? Not really.

Look at the widespread extent to which workers are having their pay frozen or cut - they're being forced to accept changes to conditions of employment, and pension entitlements are being pared back - and you have to wonder why there isn't much more widespread strike action.

The reason, of course, is recession.

Unions are in a weakened bargaining position where workers fear that a refusal to accept unwelcome change could lead to a realistic threat of worse.

An obvious example is in the car industry, where workers internationally have accepted reduced conditions and enforced holidays with pay cuts.

Strikes are also less likely when the threat of redundancy carries with it the prospect of seeking jobs elsewhere, at a time there are few to be found.

For unions, it's not all surrender though. This is an opportunity to recruit, when workers are more likely to see the value of collective protection.

It's also a time to use what leverage they have in innovative ways.

The argument from the more enlightened union leaders is that free market capitalism has lost its appeal and credibility, and here is an opportunity re-shape it.

Getting more access to the boardroom is one option, or having more influence on the governnment and regulators to cut back on short-termist management.

John Monks, formerly general secretary of the TUC and now at its European equivalent, has argued this is a good time for unions to put pressure on employers to agree to better consultation as they emerge from recession.

That could be partly on pay and conditions, seeking to make pay fairer than recent years in sharing the proceeds of a company's success, but also on welfare benefits and training.

The more enlightened employers are approaching recessionary human resource management with a more innovative approach than seen in previous recessions.

Where they can't afford pay increases this year, in some cases they're offering deferred pay in the form of shares after three or more years.

For staff you want to keep, that also builds in incentives, helps lock in loyalty and gives them a status that only senior managers have enjoyed before.

There's also a positive coming out of the offer of career breaks and part-time working.

For employers, it cuts their costs, while keeping valued workers inside the tent. For some workers, they don't have the luxury of giving up on income temporarily.

But for others, the opportunity to take time out for parenting, some education or a mid-career gap year for travel was the stuff of their dreams during the boom years.

So recession can offer a win-win, and allow for more of the work-life balance that many people crave.

Those looking for more signs of industrial conflict on the horizon should look at the public sector. The strikes being reported today all involve employees who don't have to fear their organisation's collapse.

That's true of all of the public sector.

So where unions have more bargaining power, service managers will have to negotiate their way very carefully through the minefield of industrial action that looms with the government spending squeeze.

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• - What's this?

Money seems to be cascading out of Scottish sport.

Diadora went under last week, taking with it the kit sponsorship of the Scotland football team.

The same happened yesterday to Canterbury Europe, kit sponsors of the Scottish rugby team.

Could it be that Scots fans are unpersuaded by the value-for-money of their national teams' replica kits?

And of course, there's the mess left by Setanta's collapse.

There was a concern that only Sky Sports would want to replace its contract to televise Scottish Premier League matches. And without competition, of course it could name its price.

So the hope was that a big sports pay-TV player - ESPN, part of the Disney empire - could come in from the United States and force an auction for the SPL rights.

Some hope.

We're now told that the two giants have got together and they're bidding to share the rights between them.

That's for no more money than Setanta paid over the past four years, while wanting to lock in the Scottish clubs for the next five years.

That helps explain why the Old Firm clubs have let it be known they're trying to put together their own alternative to Sky and ESPN.

It's hard to see how they could sustain the business model, or that it's going to be in the smaller clubs interests.

But it's more likely that Rangers and Celtic are trying to force the TV companies to think again - at least to shorten the length of the tie-in contract.

When Sky Sports got this level of domination over English premiership football, the European Commission stepped in.

Its answer was to force the league to split its TV rights into six packages, not all of which could be secured by one company.

Perhaps the European Commission should take a look at what's currently happening with the Scottish Premier League.

If, as seems to be the case, Sky and ESPN are bidding jointly, it doesn't look like healthy competition, and it doesn't look good for Scottish football.

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• - What's this?

They're striking camp at T in the Park, with many of the tents abandoned as cheap and disposable.

One teenager I know claimed to have bought a new tent for her and three friends at £22.

At £170 for a ticket, it suggests the recession hasn't hobbled the spending power of music festival-goers.

And even if the tents are cheap, that's just the start of the costs of this rite of youth passage.

Read more about that from the .

This brings to mind the curious contrasts of the way this recession is affecting young people.

It's a truism that the debts being built up by government will weigh heavily on their tax bills for decades to come.

Jobs scrapheap

Likewise, the cost of looking after us baby boomers in our retirement, when too few of us have made adequate preparations.

It's also clear from the unemployment figures that young people are taking the brunt of the recession, and we haven't yet seen the impact of the first cohort of school leavers and college/university graduates to try to enter the job market in the teeth of recession.

Those of an age to get into higher and further education are finding competition heating up with others thrown on the jobs scrapheap and wanting to get themselves some new skills.

Possibly this week's update on the figures will reflect young people's struggle, while anecdotal evidence shows students on their long summer break are struggling to find jobs.

Yet there's also evidence that that the age group is ignoring the impact of recession.

It's not just the impression I get from shopping on Glasgow's Buchanan Street this weekend, where the age profile was heavily biased to the young.

It's also clear from retailers' own evidence.

Not bullish

Among those with profits holding up well or surging ahead are clothes shops aimed at the young and the most fashion-conscious - the age group most likely to pay full price for the right look and the right labels.

That includes New Look, Primark and online clothing company Asos, which recently reported sales doubling in the 12 months to March, with profits up 93%, and a further rise in sales since the start of April of 52%.

That partly reflects the shift to online shopping, though company founder Nick Robinson told the market he is not bullish about that growth path continuing.

He can see his target market, aged up to 34, may be about to hit the spending buffers.

So what's going on with the young consumer?

One explanation is a sense of entitlement, built up as the children of the long boom years.

Boozing habits

A survey covering Britain, the USA, Canada, Brazil and Australia and reported in the Financial Times last week showed British youth to be unusually fond of their clothes spending.

Asked what they would never give up, no matter how bad their finances got, Brits put clothes in fourth place behind the internet, mobile phone and satellite TV.

They were much more likely to give up their boozing habits than Americans, while Canadians and Australians put movie-going high up their priorities in a recession.

Brazilians virtuously put their college costs as their most important outgoing.

All nationalities agreed they could probably do with fewer magazine subs, taxis and music downloads.

Another explanation for the strength of youth spending is that studenthood in Britain now involves such a high level of indebtedness that a bit of recession is only going to add to scarily large repayment bills and shouldn't be allowed to dampen their enthusiastic consumerism.

And given that the age at which people enter the property ownership ladder is on the way up, along with more people staying longer with their parents, disposable cash can more readily be splashed on living for today.

Let's not forget the obvious explanation for this paradox: that 'young people' are an exceptionally diverse group about whom I shouldn't even try to generalise.

Pester power

Maybe so, but don't think the young are oblivious to the seriousness of the economic situation.

Yet another survey, this time for Asda, this weekend showed children are much more concerned about their parents' finances than their parents realise.

Questioning 1,000 adults and 600 children aged between seven and 16, the supermarket's market research arm found 18% of parents thought their children are concerned about the family's finances, while 55% of the young people agreed.

They claim even to have throttled back on pester power as a result.

And two-thirds of those aged between 12 and 16 say they are concerned about getting a job when they're older.

If they have to spoil their childhood worrying, they might do better to consider the impact of spending cuts on their school, college and university budgets.

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Glasgow roads seem mercifully unblocked this week, with no school run and lots of Glaswegians on holiday.

The Clyde resort traditions of Fair Fortnight are not what they were. But nor are the latest figures for passengers through the city's airport.

The June statistics from BAA, the company that owns Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports (as well as London's three main airports) show Glasgow figures in real trouble, while Edinburgh is bucking the recession and the aviation trend.

It's been rising for three months. One month it looked like it might have been explained by the date on which Easter fell this year and last. Then it was helped by rugby fans heading for Murrayfield.

But this month, it's looking more like a trend. Perhaps it's because the big banks have to keep in touch with bosses and their government shareholding masters 400 miles to the south, which wasn't the case last year.

But it seems more likely Edinburgh is proving a resilient, attractive travel destination. And that's perhaps as continental holidays lose their appeal.

The BAA figures for all its airports, show European charter flight passengers were 21% down on June last year, though continental scheduled flights were only down 3%. North Atlantic flights were down nearly 10%, but other long haul 0.2%.

At the other end of the M8, it's not a happy story at all. Whether you compare June with last year, or the start of the year with the start of last year, Glasgow has seen passenger numbers down more than 10%. Plane movements were down faster at Glasgow Airport than any other BAA airport - by 14% compared with a UK average of 6.3%.

And on cargo, Glasgow is losing out again. While Edinburgh has seen strong growth, Glasgow has seen a 40% fall in tonnage, comparing the start of this year with the first six months of 2008.

This autumn, BAA is due to complete a £31m extension of Glasgow's passenger terminal. But the figures of divergence between the two airports won't help the company make the case that it's protecting the interests of both. It's because of the lack of competition between them that has prompted the Competition Commission

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Bosses at the world's leading drinks company may sell into 180 different markets, but there's one in particular that is causing them a pain in the corporate neck this week, and it's the Scottish one, in a country that gives them several of their biggest brands.

The closure notice slapped on the Kilmarnock plant last has rebounded, with a cross-party, cross-government alliance at a time when the political and news cycle was ready to latch on to an issue that represents widespread fears about future job losses, and in an Ayrshire town that is as badly affected by recession and manufacturing decline as any in Scotland.

The cross-party alliance has, of course, been strained by Labour attacks on Alex Salmond for preferring a TV interview on Tuesday over the short-notice offer of a meeting with chief executive Paul Walsh.

That's unlikely to do lasting damage to the campaign, but it's politically embarrassing for the SNP First Minister, particularly with the Port Dundas distillery closure in the Glasgow North-East constituency where a by-election looms.

Anyway, the president of Diageo Europe and global head of operations were in Edinburgh on Thursday on a mission to explain, promising that minds are still open about the Kilmarnock closures.

They say they've been through the options, including a green-field, new-build plant near Kilmarnock, and none of them stack up compared with closures and new investment to the east. With £20 million of annual savings in the pipeline, the investment of £100m in upgrading plant in Fife and Clackmannanshire seems to them a pretty good deal.

So what could Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government or Scotland Office offer? It would have to be a whole lot of incentive to beat the £20 million annual savings, they admit.

What they can offer is reassurance that they appreciate their workforce's loyalty, and say they are looking for "a legacy" for Kilmarnock - other than unemployment, that is. Such as a museum? They're not saying, but they're open to ideas.

I suggested the value they place on loyalty may ring rather hollow in Ayrshire, but the argument is that modernisation and greater efficiency is necessary for the company's health in a price-sensitive competition for drinkers worldwide.

Yes, Johnnie Walker is a premium blended whisky brand, but its competitors include vodka, rum and beer as much as bourbon and Bushmills.

From Finance Secretary John Swinney comes a firm warning to Diageo that this consultation must not be a sham. It's unusually undiplomatic language from a minister:

"In the last week Diageo have provoked some of the most damaging publicity ever encountered by a major company here. That is because there are more than five million people in Scotland who believe the company must understand the social consequences, particularly in Ayrshire, of their financial proposals are not acceptable to the people of Scotland."

Meanwhile, a warning comes from CBI Scotland that so much fuss about a successful company's decision to modernise will do Scotland's international reputation as a business location no favours at all.

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The lack of corporate headquarters remains a conspicuous weakness of the Scottish economy - particularly so with Diageo's distant decision to restructure and close its Kilmarnock plant.

The past two years have seen two globally significant companies taken over - Scottish & Newcastle and then Halifax Bank of Scotland.

So as the list of Scotland's largest companies now include relatively small firms, just over the billion pound market capitalisation, it's worth noting that two of those in the top 10 are being talked about as takeover targets.

They're both in the offshore oil and gas sector.

That's partly because the bigger players are not under severe pressure, and with oil prices bouncing back from recession lows, they can look to expand.

It's also partly because smaller companies in the oil and gas industry find it more difficult to weather the storms of volatile prices and tight credit.

Bullying face-off

There's geo-politics at play as well.

With Russia still in a bullying face-off over gas supplies through Ukraine, it's a reminder of the gas price spikes that have sent wholesale markets into a tizz over the past two winters, and left retailers at the mercy of events.

Centrica, parent company for British Gas and Scottish Gas and flush with cash from a rights issue last December, is interested in acquiring Aberdeen-based Venture Production.

The company, which specialises in extracting output from North Sea reservoirs deemed uneconomic by others, has assets that could provide a more reliable source of supply for Centrica's customers.

That explains why Venture's share price has been on the rise, from a year low of 290 pence up to 813 pence at close of play on Tuesday.

Next Monday is the deadline set by the Takeover Panel for Centrica to stop toying with Venture, and either commit to a takeover bid or stand back for at least six months.

Takeover rumours

There have been exploratory talks, but the two sides have not yet found common ground on price.

Also based in Aberdeen, and also with a market capitalisation of around £1.2bn, Dana Petroleum has been the subject of takeover rumours in recent weeks, with Germany's biggest power generator, RWE.

The share price of the explorer, with North Sea and North African activities, rose sharply on 29 June, but has since fallen again.

The Wood Group has indicated it could be on the trail of acquisitions.

In the offshore services sector, small companies are struggling from the paring back of exploration budgets as a result of the oil price collapse since last summer, and that makes them all the more affordable for Sir Ian Wood's firm.

Looking attractive

On Monday, we learned of continuing concerns in that part of the sector, which could mean an opportunity for Wood, Scotland's seventh biggest company.

A survey by Subsea UK, the trade body for oil and gas services firms, found concerns about orders, backlogs of work being run down, and market conditions on track to get tougher still.

Though work is still coming from exports to Brazil and West Africa, that sheltering may be reduced, and the survey found companies are gloomy about an improvement in orders before the end of the year.

With some assets distressed as well as successful Scottish companies looking attractive, this is one sector where there may be more acquisition news to come.

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Diageo's dilemma: to tell its workforce first that they're getting sacked, or to let politicians in on the news beforehand?

The global drinks giant opted to give its employees priority, if only to tell them that they are being treated as dispensible.

So Diageo is paying the price of leaving Scotland's politicians to find out last week from the 91Èȱ¬.

Ministers, MPs and MSPs don't like it at all, as it leaves them scurrying around trying to look busy and in charge of events - when it's clear that they're not.

That's how you get to a political campaign to save the Johnnie Walker bottling and packaging plant in Kilmarnock, in which Diageo is cast as the villain.

But let's not pretend this is all about bad news presentation.

What lies behind politicians' and unions' irritation is a key challenge about jobs, about what government can do to save jobs, and the future of the whisky industry.

Depressed demand

The decision has a bit to do with the recession, in that whisky demand is depressed.

But this is much more about restructuring for the long-term - which, of course, is more easily achieved during a recession, when workers are under pressure and less able to kick back.

Recession allows managers, across all sectors, to drive change they might have had in mind for years.

It's also worth bearing in mind that whisky, more than any other industry, has to plan on production and then maturation, leading to sales so far off that these bottles might well be for sale during our next recession.

The closure at Kilmarnock (700 jobs to go) and Port Dundas distillery and cooperage in Glasgow (140 more redundancies) is part of a package that includes substantial investment in Fife and Clackmannanshire (400 jobs being created).

The idea seems to be that the company will develop more efficient production lines, while cutting transport costs between the distilled product, the bottling plant and the departure point for exports.

And not far behind this is a threat to move more bottling overseas.

Cheaper locations

Already, between 10% and 20% of output - at the cheaper end of the blends market and, for tax reasons, to Australia - leaves Scotland in bulk rather than bottles. Diageo sends less than half that proportion.

A rule is being introduced by law that would require single malts to be bottled in Scotland, when none are bottled elsewhere at the moment.

But for the dominant blended market, the cost advantages of overseas bottling, close to market and in cheaper locations, may prove much more damaging than the Kilmarnock news for the quarter of whisky jobs on those production lines in Scotland.

What has become a political battle to save jobs, mainly focused on Kilmarnock, raises lots of questions. Here are three...

What can any government do in the face of a large powerful global company that wants to restructure and shed jobs?

The main lever over which the Scottish Government has control is that of financial incentives to stay.

That is limited by European competition and state aid rules, and by a lack of government cash.

It's also debatable that taxpayer money should be poured into retaining a facility that doesn't have its owner's confidence.

Shed jobs

Second, is government well prepared for this challenge?

It used to be for Scottish Enterprise to know such a closure was on the cards, then to prepare and deliver the response.

That's not its role any more. The lead economic development agency is focused on the 2,000 or so companies with the best growth potential, rather than those most likely to shed jobs.

There were contacts with Diageo ahead of the announcement, but it clearly wasn't the kind of close, trusting relationship where plans were shared.

The local enterprise network is now disbanded.

East Ayrshire Council has responsibility for local economic development, and being one of the smallest local authorities in Scotland, it's poorly resourced for this kind of challenge.

Success story

Third, does it make any difference in this case that Scotch whisky has to be distilled and matured in Scotland?

This is not a widget that can be produced anywhere else in the world, where cost factors are cheaper.

Diageo has around 40% of the market, and benefits hugely from the extraordinarily successful branding of Scotch as a premium product.

Of course, Johnnie Walker and Diageo's own marketing have contributed to that success story.

But it is more vulnerable to bad publicity if this political campaign gathers momentum.

On Monday a small-scale Highland distiller suggested a boycott of Diageo products, which may smack of self-interest.

Broken promise

But it's a company which has been here before.

When Guinness bought out The Distillers Company Limited in 1986, the next year creating United Distillers from its merger with Bells, a broken promise that the new company's headquarters would be in Scotland led to a boycott by Scottish customers.

That would later become Diageo, and clearly, that boycott hasn't hurt its growth as a global drinks company.

But this protest is a reminder for the London headquarters that, even if you have offices in 80 countries and sell into 180 markets, having custody of such a large share of the Scotch whisky industry carries responsibilities beyond shareholder value.

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During a heat wave, this might be a good time to warn that Scotland's homes will have to get a bit chillier.

That's if new targets are to be met for reducing Scotland's carbon emissions.

A renewable action plan released this week by the Scottish Government means that only the most verdant of greens could accuse it of a lack of ambition - even though it is under attack from opponents today for a lack of action on household insulation grants.

The implications of the action plan, set out in hard figures, indicate the extent to which the economy, and business and household energy consumption, are on track for a revolution.

Part of the plan is to develop technologies that aren't just untested: some remain theoretical.

Hydrogen fuel cells will have to come a long way to meet the expectations of storing offshore wind energy.

And whereas biofuels have been blamed for taking millions of hectares out of food production, pushing up world grain prices, Britain and Ireland are sharing in a £4.5m research project to figure out the potential for farming, or at least harvesting, marine algae as a source of bio-energy.

The most striking figure is in home energy use and heating in particular. This is what's left over to reach the overall targets on energy use once Scottish Government's officials have figured out what's achievable in renewable electricity generation.

They want that to reach an ambitious 50% by 2020.

Then there's the transport sector, which they hope can be pushed up to 11% renewable energy sources within 11 years - up from around 1% now. Much of that would be from electric cars and biofuels.

So heating, which represents roughly 50% of Scotland's and Britain's energy use, is going to have to play a big part in the change.

It's been seen as the sleeping giant of the carbon emissions challenge.

And if these targets are to be met, that household energy demand is going to have to fall by a whopping 32% between 2005 and 2020.

With domestic space heating takes up nearly 40% of Scottish heat energy demands, and household hot water responsible for another 12%, the implications are that a lot more effort will have to go into energy conservation measures in 2.4 million existing Scottish homes as well as placing demanding requirements on new-build.

In rural homes, away from the gas grid, biomass, solar thermal and air or ground heat pumps, are going to play a prominent role.

We'll hear a lot more about renewable heating in towns and cities too, including district heating schemes, to burn biomass and draw hot water from industries or other sources, for pumping through local homes and businesses.

The first large-scale such projects are soon to be commissioned in Irvine and Invergordon.

And it looks like the thermostat will have to be turned down a bit. How might that be achieved?

Well, the Scottish Government's Renewables Action Plan backs the idea of a "renewable heat incentive which involves a levy on fossil fuel suppliers" - though it also says the power to impose that lies in the domain of the UK Government.

Just to be clear, that means your bills going up again.

The UK Government legislated last year for such incentives for renewable heat, and is scheduled to be telling us more about its plans in the next few weeks. It's what Whitehall ministers like to call "the Great British Refurb".

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So the government will stand by the Clyde, by its shipyards, and by workers. That's reassuring.

After the revelation - revealed right here - that plans are being drawn up for the closure of at least one and possibly two Royal Navy shipyards, there's been quite a flurry of political and corporate activity.

BVT, the company that owns Govan and Scotstoun on the Clyde, as well as the yard at Portsmouth, has stressed there's lots of work to keep them going for the next five to seven years.

And the UK Government is not in the business of funding redundancies, according to Scotland Secretary Jim Murphy.

Indeed, he was standing right next to the Clyde and its shipyard workers today, after a meeting at Scotstoun yard, where he stressed the Government is a few weeks away from signing its Terms of Business Agreement (ToBA) with BVT.

That is designed to ensure work for the company for the next 15 years.

So what about the offer, made clear in a leaked document from BVT's chief executive, Alan Thompson, that the government will fund the cost of rationalising down to only one yard?

Jim Murphy says the government is not in the business of funding redundancies.

But his colleague, Quentin Davies, the defence procurement minister, said on the 91Èȱ¬ News Channel yesterday that it is standard practice for the government to fund redundancies when contracts come to an end.

He said: "In all agreements we have with defence manufacturers, involving large, long-term construction projects, we do take on board responsibility for any redundancies at the end of the programme if there are any".

So the government is in that business.

But Mr Davies went on to the message of reassurance: "I'm not expecting any redundancies at the end of the carrier programme. I'm not expecting any redundancies at all."

So let's look again at the leaked documents.

It says that BVT has made a commitment to review its "industrial footprint in light of the projected reduction in UK shipbuilding requirements post completion of the CVF (aircraft carrier) programme".

The Clyde's role in that should be complete in 2014, and it then moves to Rosyth in Fife for the following two to three years.

Many of the Clydeside workers will probably be required to take their skills from the banks of the Clyde to the banks of the Forth.

"Current projections show that at that time the MoD requirements could be delivered from a single BVT facility," says Alan Johnston's memo. "And MoD has committed to underwrite the necessary closure costs".

And how does this next sentence fit with what Mr Murphy is now saying?

"One-off rationalisation/investment costs are estimated to be between £115-£165m for redundancies, site closure, environmental clean up, equipment disposal and asset write-downs, and MoD will underwrite the recovery of these costs under the ToBA."

It's spelled out even more clearly in an "in strict confidence" PowerPoint presentation by Dominic Carr, commercial director of BVT shipyards.

That bluntly states: "MoD will only pay equivalent of one shipbuild facility 24 months after last CVF block".

Under 'Cost Recovery', Mr Carr goes on: "MoD to underwrite rationalisation costs (c£115m-£165m) if options appraisal in 2010 recommends restructuring post-CVF".

There is one clarification we've had from Alan Thompson about the potential shape of rationalisation, and that is to say the two Clyde yards are seen by the company as one site.

That makes the closure threat a straight choice between the Clyde on one hand and Portsmouth on the other.

He also made it clear at Scotstoun today that exports are an essential part of his plans for retaining capacity in the industry.

What lies behind that is the certainty that the UK Government will not have enough work for all three yards (or two sites) to do.

There is nothing that either company or government have yet said that denies the threat to close at least one yard.

The leaked BVT memo makes clear the 15-year ToBA assumes a steady flow of work after the carriers are finished. It makes clear that shipyards will be busy for the next five years.

And for all that Mr Thompson has been saying the option of closing one yard is a "worse case" or "downside" scenario, there's no reference to that in his memo, and nor is it clear what the upside scenario would be.

There's hardly any mention of an exports strategy, though there have been in recent speeches the chief executive has made.

Rationalisation, on the other hand, holds out the attraction for BVT of savings, and lots of them, in the region of £350m to £500m.

If you're a BVT shareholder, that doesn't look like the worst case. If you're a shipyard worker on the Clyde or Portsmouth, it doesn't look at all reassuring.

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