What more of John Wick, the former SAS major allegedly the middle man in the ring that sold details of MPs' expenses to The Daily Telegraph?

Wick is a Tory supporter who runs International Security Solutions, a corporate intelligence agency in the City. But he is well-versed in the black arts - City Spy has learned that previously he used to work at British Airways, and was one of those involved in spreading the "dirt" around about its arch-rival Virgin.

* Until a year ago, Wick was a member of the Carlton Club, which only admits members of the Conservative Party.

The word in the recesses of Whitehall is that several Tories knew the expenses scandal was coming and may even have helped to engineer it, in the belief that they would take a hit but Labour would take a much bigger one (expenses grabbing only began in earnest when Labour took power in 1997).

Wick is thought to have been in contact with some members of the powerful Tory 1922 backbench committee...

Back to roots of green shoots

Lord Lamont says it is too soon to see the "green shoots" of economic recovery. "We face a long period of very, very slow growth and bumping along the bottom," he warns. It was of course in 1991, when Lamont was chancellor and just plain Norman, that he coined the "green shoots" phrase, even though firm evidence of recovery did not appear until 1993.

* A little while ago, Tony Shiret, the Marks & Sparks-bashing analyst at Credit Suisse, put out another tough note headlined Do the Right Thing. Shiret's 100-page missive did not pull punches. He argued that Sir Stuart Rose had done little in his five-year tenure to turn the company around. M&S yesterday unveiled its year-end profits and its latest plan to take things forward. The title of this drive? "2020 - Doing the Right Thing." Shiret should sue for breach of copyright.

* The Nobel prize-winning American economist Paul Krugman was in China last week, and front-row seats at his Peking University talk were selling for more than £5000. The Princeton liberal isn't ashamed of turning a buck. Back in 1999, he took $37,500 off Enron - a consulting fee he called "rather low compared with my usual rates". The Chinese proclaimed his visit as "a great prophet is coming". Surely they meant great profit?

Donald aims to bring author to book

Donald Trump is suing Tim O'Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald for defamation after the journalist suggested The Donald was actually only worth a couple of hundred million dollars. Revelations from the $5 billion (£3.2 billion) lawsuit so far: Trump uses "mental projections", his worth goes up and down with feelings, even his own and his personal brand is, according to Trump, "very, very valuable"...

* Ring, ring. It's a "friend" of Sir Victor Blank phoning to take umbrage with City Spy's piece about the departing Lloyds chairman. Yes, he may be paid £640,000 a year - or £53,333 a month - for what is technically a part-time position but for several months now he's worked full-time, often with overtime thrown in. And while Victor has 433,000 shares in Lloyds, they were bought with his own money at prices several times higher than the current share price because he believes in the company. Thank you.

* Evidence of the gravy train for lawyers that is the banking crisis, and the Government's handling of it, comes from The Lawyer magazine. It reports that Freshfields partners have been billing the Bank of England up to £715 an hour for their services.

* Loony management-speak at British Airways, where the airline has created something called Revenue Labs, a task force intended to enable it to respond more quickly to market changes and to encourage consumers to fly. Er, that's a marketing unit then. And guess what Revenue Labs is focusing on? "Patriotism and positivity". Ugh. So that's fly British Airways in other words.

* Being Scrooge pays. Law firm DWF, which imposed a £5-a-head budget for Christmas parties last year, saw turnover rise by 10.6%, to hit £55.3 million. But staff at the firm won't be celebrating too much: salaries have been frozen and no firm-wide bonuses are to be awarded.

* To Professional Manager magazine, where Labour peer Lord Haskel says the business world is too important to be left to mere business people; that politicians really need to intervene. Seriously. In a month when MPs have demonstrated the most shameful and corrupt disregard for business integrity by claiming false expenses, the textile industrialist-turned-politician pontificates on how the 2006 Companies Act sets out the duties of company directors.

He claims that "public anger towards the banks may extend to greater scepticism about business Over the coming months, it may well be that politicians use the [Companies] Act to justify a more principled type of capitalism". No mention of a more principled type of politics but hey ho.

"Many consumers are concerned about the quality of the product due to the potential severity of the consequences of failure" - Deutsche Bank discussing Durex maker SSL's product line.