WORRYING news filtering through to the thousands of Merrill Lynch staffers in London from the Charlotte, North Carolina, HQ of their Bank of America paymasters.

There will be no Christmas party — for a second year running. Some conspiracy theorists blame the climate of austerity under Obama's “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg, who's been busily rejecting pay and bonus deals proposed by the country's bailed-out banks. The truth is more mundane. I gather that BoA has a longstanding policy of not funding work Christmas parties. Says my disappointed Merrill mole: “It's no surprise BoA are such killjoys given that the last bar closes in Charlotte at 10pm.”

* ONE Merrill broker recounts wistfully the Christmas party when a colleague brought one of his mistresses instead of his wife. This created such a furore that the department boss imposed a strict “wives only” rule.

* HOW much progress is the Financial Reporting Council making with breaking up the unhealthy grip of the Big Four auditors? Er, none. Three years ago, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young audited 96% of the FTSE 100. Now they account for 94% of the blue chip index. Meanwhile, on Aim, where smaller firms of accountants have traditionally been much more successful in grabbing business, things have moved on.
In 2006, the Big Four accounted for 39% of Aim companies. That has now risen to 44%.

£40 for a party? Thanks a lot

A question of etiquette: is it acceptable to invite friends and contacts to your Christmas party and then charge them £40 a head for the privilege? That's what Shire Health Group founder Margot James, who sold her business to Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP for £4 million in 2004, is doing. Known as the most celebrated gay woman in the Tory ranks, she is now a Parliamentary candidate for Stourbridge and has sent out an invitation for “Christmas drinks and canapés” in her South Kensington home. For their £40, guests get to hear her chum Matthew Parris, The Times columnist, speak and drink a glass or two of vino.

Shell not on the ball'

MORALE at Shell seems to be plumbing depths not seen since the reserves overstatement scandal, City Spy hears. No surprise, since Peter Voser's oil giant failed so dramatically last Thursday to match BP's forecast-beating profits. News of 5000 job cuts clearly hasn't helped.

Here's a memo from a Shell staffer published on the unofficial staff gripe site royaldutchshellplc.com. “The need to search for positions in the new organisation and make the required applications is a time-consuming exercise. Rather than focusing their attention on the business of finding, producing and selling oil and gas, it has instead diverted the attention of the entire organisation away from the business.”

Club date rings a bell

JAMES Henderson is struggling not to fan the gossip that he is selling up his Pelham public relations shop to Tim Bell's Chime. Speculation has it that a deal is imminent. The chat is not helped by the fact that Henderson is hosting a soirée at Terence Conran's new Lutyens private members club on Fleet Street with “an old friend” Patsy Baker, who just happens to be the business development director of Chime's Bell Pottinger PR outfit. “I wouldn't read anything into it at all,” Henderson soothes. “We're just helping out in getting the word round about Lutyens. We are not making any comment [about the Chime deal] but then we are not denying it either.”

* RECENT reports on the deal had one of Pelham's founders grandly described as Baron Vivian of Glynn and Truro. That'll be Henderson's mate and founding partner then, the never knowingly underlunched Charlie Vivian.