Is it any wonder the railways are in a mess, given the turnover of Transport Secretaries? During the privatisation of the railways in the 1990s, the Tories managed to get through five Secretaries of State. In 12 years of Labour, we are incredibly on our eleventh Transport supremo, Andrew Adonis's predecessors including such discredited politicos as John Prescott, Stephen Byers, Ruth Kelly and Geoff Hoon.

* WHO is the FTSE 100 chief executive, lives in West London and never out of the news, seemingly, who has left his wife for one of his employees?

Raising a glass to City villains

What do Bernie Madoff, Sir Fred Goodwin, Alistair Darling and Mervyn King have in common? Arguably not a lot, apart from the fact they are some of the most well-known faces from the credit crunch. That is why six-foot-high black-and-white portraits of all four men are currently hanging in the plate-glass windows of Liquid Nation, a new bar on Ladbroke Grove next to the Tube station. Owned by Vince Power, the bar opens tonight. While Madoff and Goodwin are considered bad guys, Darling and King would like to think they did little wrong. But in the public consciousness, apparently, anyone with City connections is a villain.

Osborne's Mandy nightmare

GEORGE OSBORNE really should learn that he messes with Peter Mandelson at his peril. Osborne's latest salvo at Gordon Brown, in an interview for BBC1's Ten O'Clock News, was to say that the Prime Minister was blocking the Tories from seeing key Whitehall data and information about public spending — and how it could be reduced. Enter Mandy, the unofficial deputy Prime Minister, who slapped down Osborne by accusing him of telling a “deliberate untruth”. Mandelson added: “There is a very unattractive pattern of behaviour that is starting to emerge with George Osborne, of innuendo in pursuit of a smear.” And to think, they used to like holidaying together in Corfu only last summer...

* THE Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee started a two-day fact-finding mission to Yorkshire last night. MPs were due to host a town-hall meeting — a first for the committee — and are also planning to visit ITV Yorkshire, the Yorkshire Post (owned by Johnston Press) and Real Radio Yorkshire (owned by Guardian Media Group). It's unlikely to be an uplifting trip — ITV has announced it is shutting its studios in Leeds.

* IN the ongoing saga of Xstrata's proposed merger with Anglo American, Anglo shareholder Aviva was quick to make its position clear, supporting fully the firm's rejection of Xstrata's proposal and seeing “little financial or strategic merit for the deal”. It was also happy to support the current management team led by chief executive Cynthia Carroll. Two days later, however, last Friday afternoon, a rather dry Stock Exchange statement confirmed that Aviva was selling shares in Anglo...

* STAYING with share sellers, which astute hedge fund manager sold 600,000 shares to leave his stake at just one million the day before National Express lost its East Coast rail franchise and chief executive Richard Bowker? Why, none other than Crispin Odey, of course. National Express crashed on the double blow but Odey had already cut his losses — that's real hedging for you.

Balls can't hide his anger about No. 11

IS schools secretary Ed Balls destined to be the man who will never be Chancellor? Gordon Brown's right-hand man, who spent so many years as economics adviser in the 1990s, can't get over the fact he has not been made Chancellor, and Alistair Darling still has the job.
Balls' new mantra is that Labour will continue to increase investment in public services — insisting this is possible despite the fact the Budget effectively calls for a real-terms decrease in total spending and everyone in the City knows spending must be cut as borrowing and net debt soar. When Spectator political editor Fraser Nelson wrote a blog pointing out that Balls' argument about investment was “lies”, the schools secretary called up the former City hack to rage at him and demand the posting be removed.

But Nelson refused since, he said, Balls could only offer bluster and no evidence to back up his case. How do we know this? Because Nelson wrote about it too and gave TV interviews, revealing the ear-bashing that Balls dished out. City Spy dearly hopes the minister turns up to tonight's Spectator summer party...

* GREG Hutchings, former boss of Tomkins, was ousted from his second company, Lupus, this week. In came the banks' favoured turnaround men, clearly briefed to recover as much money as possible on their loans and leave shareholders with what might remain. Hutchings wrote this to shareholders just 12 days before his departure: “Lupus has experienced management who can deal with the challenges of the recession. It is a well-run, cash-generative group of companies. We look forward to accelerating profitability and corporate development as soon as general world business activity improves.” Not now you don't, Greg.