At least new shadow Business Secretary Kenneth Clarke and his ministerial counterpart Lord Mandelson have one thing in common. The pair are involved in the secretive Bilderberg Group, the hush-hush network of international business and political leaders that meets for occasional conferences. Clarke records in the Commons' Register of Members' Interests that he went to the Bilderberg conference in Virginia last summer. Like freemasons, Bilderberg members traditionally look out for each other. But that's not always the case — just ask another British politician who was invited to that select gathering in Virginia. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, subsequently discovered what a mistake it was to cross Mandy on holiday in Corfu...

Ken Clarke's bank manager will be hoping he doesn't have to cut back too heavily on his after-dinner engagements. A recent speech to UBS netted him between £5000 and £10,000. Talks to Goldman and BGC International paid him up to £5000 a go.

Makinson makes a hash of it

Wolfson Microelectronics has been fined £140,000 by the Financial Services Authority for failing to disclose last year that it had lost part of its iPod supply contract to Apple.

The advice not to tell the market came from investor-relations experts Makinson Cowell. As it happens, the same Makinson Cowell were advisers to Marks & Spencer last year when investors were up in arms over the failure to consult over the pay-off to former chairman Lord Burns and the self-elevation of Sir Stuart Rose to the executive chairmanship...

Makinson Cowell was founded 20 years ago by John Makinson, current head of publisher Penguin and likely to succeed his boss Dame Marjorie Scardino at Pearson. Makinson is understood to retain few links with his old firm, which is now headed by former Safeway boss David Webster and a host of experienced former bankers and brokers.

Unhappy landings for Land

Land Securities and other big firms with large shopping-centre portfolios are having to cope with the rising number of retail tenants going into administration and empty units, known as voids.

In Land's third-quarter trading statement, the number of tenants in administration is reported as being 4.8% of annual rental income, versus 2.9% previously. Voids are now said to be running at 4.7%, up from 4.3%. Remember this is data only until 31 December 2008. We know how many more retailers have gone to the wall since...

And the amount of new office development space that Land Securities leased in London in the last quarter: zero.

Tim's confession to the Abbot

One person who seems not to have been taking advantage of JD Wetherspoon's controversial New Year offer of Greene King IPA at 99p a pint is Wetherspoon's wavy-haired chairman, Tim Martin. It turns out that Martin's tipple is Greene King IPA's stronger, older sibling — Abbot Ale, which is 5% proof. As Martin turned up in the City to present the trading figures, he confessed to City Spy: “That last pint of Abbot last night might not have been a good idea.”

Not all in the City are in mourning. The insolvency gurus at PricewaterhouseCoopers are making hay. Tony Lomas and Dan Schwarzman, who have been administering the last rites at Lehman, on Monday hosted a post-Christmas drinks party at the Royal Festival Hall's Skylon bar...

* As RBS suffered the biggest loss in corporate history, it's good to be sent a publication on how to avoid such pitfalls by... RBS. Its in-house magazine, Commercial Sense, includes a chapter, Dealing with the Downturn — Experts' Strategies to Help your Business. One suggestion from Graham Galloway, RBS's MD of commercial banking, is: “The most important thing is to deal with any problem as soon as you have a concern — don't wait until it is too late.”

A motto for Obama: it's the plumbing, stupid

Obama madness. Millionaire pipe-fixer Charlie Mullins, the Pimlico Plumber, received a call from CBS. Would he like to record a message for Barack Obama? The US producers presumably chose him as an English version of Joe the Plumber, who briefly dominated the election campaign. Mullins duly asked that the new man sort out the US and world economy as quickly as possible.

Which British companies might do well in Barack Obama's New America? Spotted among the 2000 special guests selected to attend the inauguration of the 44th US President was one Paul Lester, chief executive of the FTSE 250 military and civil outsourcing company VT Group.

Who says there's no money in financial PR these days? Business must be booming at FTI, the US parent of London's Financial Dynamics. It has agreed to sponsor golf champ Padraig Harrington by having its name printed on his cap. The small logo followed by three letters is reckoned to cost FTI a cool $2.5 million (£1.8 million) over three years. Harrington, who has won back-to-back Opens, is good with numbers — he is a qualified accountant. So he knows a gift horse when he sees one.

To Snakes and Ladders indoor children's playground at Syon Park, not a well-known City hangout, but increasingly popular with the banking fraternity. Normally, it is frequented by the 4x4-driving wives of rich City types and their offspring. On Monday, the waiting area was littered with alpha males staring at their BlackBerries and ruffling through the business sections of the papers. City Spy's man in the ball pool says: “All redundant. That one's from Merrill, that one's from Lehman and he's from Goldman . Their wives send them here with the kids.”