TIMES are tough at Merton council, the south London local authority whose use of consultants has cost local taxpayers more than £2 million in the last two financial years. It's ordered council employees who weren't able to make it into work because of the snow, to account for the time from their annual leave.

In an email from the council leader, councillor David Williams and chief executive Ged Curran, those staff who came in during the difficult weather were first thanked for doing so. However, the dynamic duo noted: “The snow is likely to continue, therefore services may be disrupted further, so please keep checking the council website and intranet for up to date information.”

Later, as the weather worsened, the pair's language changed and in a follow up email they ordered hapless council staff — many of whom had to stay at home to look after children because the council had ordered schools in the area to close — to treat the time off work as holiday.

For those unfortunate workers who had no holiday left, they could make up the hours using flexi-time. “If this is not possible you will be able to use annual leave from your 2009/10 leave entitlement”, announced Williams and Curran.
Well, you've got to pay for those consultants somehow.

* ANOTHER event called off due to bad weather: a drink-up organised by Rank for City hacks and analysts. Mark Brumby at Blue Oar Securities was one of those affected. In a note to clients he muses: “A poker evening that was to have been hosted by one of the UK casino majors yesterday was sadly cancelled as a result of the inclement weather. A bunch of listless analysts where thereby spared the ordeal of having to spend the evening eating, drinking and gambling.”

Germans admit advert blunder

GERMAN admen are being urged to have lessons in history after another campaign had to be pulled because of a bad-taste reference to the Third Reich.
Last month, coffee firm Tchibo was forced to stop a promotion with the slogan “everyone gets what he deserves” after it was pointed out that this was the slogan over the gateway to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Now it is the retail giant Karstadt's turn to be embarrassed. It advertised such items as a Lego submarine and a tabletop football game on the internet under the slogan “Sonderkommando Preis” or Special Commando Price. Er, Sonderkommando is a phrase with a dark past: it was the name given to the Jews at Auschwitz who were kept alive to prepare the killing of fellow prisoners and then destroy the bodies in the crematoria.
The Sonderkommando was then liquidated after an average of two months and replaced with more Jews. “The taboo brakes don't seem to be working any more,” said Wolfgang Benz, director of the Centre for Anti-Semitic Research. Karstadt said an outside agency did not adhere to the briefing it was given.
The retailer has apologised and the advert has been pulled.

* ON Tuesday, the Financial Times website was running a story about plans for a BBC/ITV/Channel 4 online joint venture, declaring confidently: “Project Kangaroo set for approval.” Fast forward 12 hours later: “Regulator blocks Kangaroo.” The earlier report is now “unavailable”. It must have been bounced...

Don't mess with Money Honey

CNBC business presenter Maria Bartiromo, the original “Money Honey”, is getting plaudits for her grilling of ex-Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain.
David Folkenflik of US National Public Radio says “Bartiromo has been accused at times of being too cosy with the financial giants she interviews” and “she shares a publicity agent with Thain” — but there was nothing cosy about this. She repeatedly asked Thain in calm tones if he was aware of Merrill's new $15 billion losses before he approved those
$4 billion bonuses for staff. Thain's stuttering answers spoke volumes — and he admitted his
$1 million office refit was wrong.

* Meanwhile, BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders has taken to calling her new blog Stephanomics. To which City Spy has only one response: NO!

* DOESN'T he know there's a financial war on? Gordon Brown's media offensive culminates in the ultimate non-interview, between a footballer who knows nothing about journalism and a Prime Minister who knows nothing about football. City Spy put last Sunday's chat between Rio Ferdinand and our Dear Leader in The Observer to one side, to enjoy at leisure. Alas, it did not repay the attention. He did his best, but poor Rio couldn't penetrate the Brown defensive wall. There was the hint of a scoop when Brown admitted that at school “the only thing I had was speed”. Alas, Rio had not just asked him if he tried drugs.

No delay from BA

OOPS! City Spy appears to have overstepped the mark and suggested British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh may have delayed issuing a profits warning. He did no such thing and City Spy apologises to him.

* AT a time like this, says the Chancellor, people want “elected politicians to level with them”. Hmmm. That will exclude Lord Mandelson then...

* ONE of the matters troubling the Treasury Select Committee about the banking crisis is whether enough journalists have sufficient expertise in financial issues to do their job. The same could be asked of the bankers and regulators who got us into this mess, and indeed the MPs on this apparently vital committee...

* “IT'S so bad even the shoplifters are staying away” — a fashion retail chief on the cold weather's effect on the High Street.

* Twitter, the social networking text-message site, has become so popular it's been dubbed “the new Facebook”. But are these inane brief “twitterings” (a maximum of 140 characters each) going to improve your career prospects? Er, probably not. The networking site that is taken seriously in the business world is LinkedIn — Goldman Sachs invested in October, valuing the firm at $1 billion. European managing director Kevin Eryes, who's just launched a new German-language version, reports traffic has soared since the Lehman Brothers collapse.

* THINGS ain't what they used to be. Wells Fargo has had to scrap a Las Vegas casino junket for employees after criticism the trip was a misuse of part of the bank's $25 billion taxpayer bailout. The company initially defended the 12 nights due to begin tomorrow at the Wynn Las Vegas and the Encore Las Vegas. But after lawmakers on Capitol Hill started to jump and down, it had a change of mind. The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous all-expenses-paid trips have included helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in the Bahamas for more than 1000 of the company's top employees and guests.