It's uncanny how police axe HQ after Iceland woe

Blame those Icelandic bankers if security at the Olympics goes haywire. The Metropolitan Police is not to press ahead with a new £30 million strategic command facility, intended as a command control centre for London 2012. Fair enough -that's the service's choice. However, the reasoning seems a little bizarre, if not worrying. The cost of the project at Hendon, which also includes new training buildings, equates to the exact amount the police lost in the Icelandic banking collapse. A saving had to be made and the new scheme, er, pardon the pun, copped it. But it all seems too convenient. City Spy can't help but wonder if this makes sense - either the planned complex was needed or it wasn't. If it was, it should continue and cuts be made elsewhere. If it wasn't, why was it being built in the first place - and if Iceland's banks had not gone down would London have been left with a white elephant?

* The embarrassing item on Jacqui Smith's expenses is not the blue movie, rather the revelation that they (or rather we) paid to watch Ocean's 13 twice. Was the plot too complex to understand the first time around?

Capitalists fight back at G20

The fightback is starting... well, sort of. A chap called Rory Hodgson is organising a G20 Pro-Capitalist Counter-protest and is rallying supporters of market economics, via Facebook, for events on 1 April at the Bank of England and 2 April at the ExCel Centre. He claims state regulation, rather than market forces, is to blame for the recession. "It is in the most regulated sectors — the banking and housing sectors — that this crisis has occurred," says Hodgson.

* City Spy is grateful to Financial News for explaining that the Michael Phelps listed on Deutsche Bank's advisory board in its latest annual report is not the record-setting Olympian but the chairman of a firm called Dornoch Capital and the Enrique Iglesias is not the Spanish singer but the secretary-general of the Ibero-American conference.

FT finds favour with Obama

Interviewed INTERVIEWED on the eve of the G20, Barack Obama says: "I read the Financial Times before other people read the Financial Times. Now it's trendy and everybody carries around a Financial Times."

Where was he interviewed? Er, the Financial Times. Next week, Barack tells Disney Channel how his world is not complete... without a twice-daily fix of Mickey and friends.

* Still, FT supremo, Dame Marjorie Scardino, will doubtless be gratified with the Obama endorsement. While she insisted that the FT's parent company Pearson was impartial in the run-up to last year's US Presidential election, Scardino appeared to be pretty enthusiastic about Obama. As well she might. He made a campaign pledge that his administration would invest heavily in extra textbooks for American schools... which is excellent news for educational publisher Pearson.

* Forbes has woken up to the fact that its claim that Property "billioniare" Simon Halabi had a stake in the Shard of Glass tower was somewhat dated. A full 18 months after he sold up, Forbes magazine proudly announced in its latest list of world billionaires published earlier this month that he was a shareholder still — a blunder that City Spy felt moved to point out. Two weeks later, the Forbes website has done the right thing and removed the reference to the Shard.

* Recession watch Part 1027. Aspinalls no longer charges a membership fee.

Branson drives straight into Formula One spotlight with Brawn deal

Sir Richard Branson has every right to be smug. The flamboyant entrepreneur made back his money 40 times over on a last-minute deal to sponsor the former Honda Formula One team. Brawn GP's dream debut Down Under — a one-two finish — ensured Virgin Group received global TV coverage worth more than $10.4 million (£7.3 million), having paid only an estimated $250,000 for its logo to appear on the team's cars in Melbourne. Figures from SportsPro magazine show the sponsorship cost was even dwarfed by the coverage Virgin received in the UK, valued at almost £350,000. Branson rushed to Australia and said he would like to see the team renamed Virgin. No doubt Bernie Ecclestone is thrilled to have a new motor-racing mogul with whom to share the spotlight...

* City Spy is trying to recall when, exactly, Branson developed a passion for motor sport. But he loves it now...

Feeling blue about 45% tax rate

The Tories say that given the state of the public finances it would be "difficult to avoid" Labour's plan to increase top rate tax to 45% for those earning over £150,000. But how much would it raise? Around £1.2 billion says the Treasury who assume that the 400,000 people hit by it would not alter their behaviour as a result and just pay the extra. Er, "approximately nothing" says the Institute for Fiscal Studies. "People will contribute more to their private pensions. Convert more income into capital gains. Emigrate. Work less."

* As the Government gets ready to launch its National Apprenticeship Scheme, comes news that 3500 apprentices in construction alone have lost their jobs in the past six months...

* The public service just keeps on growing: advertisements have gone out for an unspecified number of "communications" vacancies at the Department of Work and Pensions.

* A cost-cutting memo sent by UBS's new chief executive Oswald Gruebel as the firm faces what he called an "icy headwind" made it clear that "it's essential that we further decrease our costs". But workers didn't realise things would get this bad. The usual free Friday finger buffet of sandwiches, cakes, pizza and beer has suddenly gone off the menu. Daily free fruit has suddenly also been shelved.