French energy group Total, said it is reviewing the future of its directly-owned forecourts. Photograph Ian Waldie/Getty Images The Russians may be coming – to a petrol station near you, if the latest upheaval in the oil industry comes to pass. French energy group Total wants to sell off up to 500 UK forecourts and [...]

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair boss. Photograph: Carlo Cerchioli / G/N/Carlo Cerchioli / GraziaNeri Hilarious stuff from Michael O’Leary in the Independent this morning. Just when you thought Ryanair’s chief executive couldn’t make a bigger prat of himself, he manages to up the ante. This time, by quite some considerably margin. In his latest tirade against all [...]

Blue skies and British engineering working together. Photograph: Jon Butterworth for the Guardian Crises provide opportunities, as every good manager knows. From my point of view as a particle physicist there is a very dangerous kind of opportunist lurking in and around Whitehall. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that if swingeing [...]

Local council spending over £500: many are publishing on PDFs It’s an open data revolution. Every one of the 152 local authorities in England has to publish every item of spending over £500 by the end of this year. The Liberal-Conservative coalition government has been pretty explicit about what it expects. First the prime minister [...]

Leonard Worsell (left) and John ‘Jac’ John: two of the Llanelli strike casualties. Photograph: Public domain A rifle shot rings out. The men by the garden wall stand their ground. “It’s OK,” one shouts out. “It’s only a blank!” There is laughter....