Tomorrow's Business Today
Soup and Sunflowers
For my money, the best PR stunt for a while was the climate activists who chucked Heinz tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.
This drew predictable outrage from all the right places.
In The Spectator, Douglas Murray used the incident as a peg for a wider piece headlined How to protest the protestors.
Like Howard Beale in the movie Network, Murray is mad as hell and he isn’t going to take it anymore. Though that is his default position.
What some of those protesting the protestors missed was that in this case they knew no damage would occur. The picked that painting specifically because it was covered by glass.
So it was a clean-up job rather than an art world tragedy.
And it made some of us who weren’t otherwise paying attention listen to what they had to say, which we wouldn’t have done were they politely holding up a sign.
Bob Geldof is among those who thinks the Sunflowers activists were “1000 per cent right”.
For our Find Out Now poll this week we asked two questions:
Do you support the protesters who threw Heinz tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers?And Do you support the UK Government pursuing the search for fossil fuels by issuing new licences to drill for oil?
The conclusions are interesting.
What they show is that many people who didn’t like the painting being attacked, have every sympathy for the protestors actual goals.
You can see the full results below.
Press release of the day
The weakness of the pound has helped boost the value of dividends by £5.7 billion, says this from Link Group.
Since many dividends are declared in dollars, weak sterling gave a flattering view of company payouts to shareholders.
Ian Stokes at Link Group said: “The economic backdrop in the UK and for the wider world has deteriorated markedly in the last three months. The sharp increase in bond yields has huge implications for asset prices, asset allocation, personal finances, and government deficits.”
Stories that will keep rolling
1) Is Lloyds boss Charlie Nunn going to start opening up?
2) Has Foxtons seen housing activity slow right down in London?
3) Is Shell guilty of greenwashing?
4) What have cuts in production levels of the new iPhone done to investor sentiment at Apple?
