Apart from the involvement of Britain’s largest union, there is no obvious connection between the strike at the Grangemouth petrochemical complex and the peremptory closure of the Butler & Tanner printing works in the old West Country weaving town of Frome with the loss of nearly 300 jobs.

Yet they could signal a disturbing fracture in relations between ‘bosses’, as the media likes to call them, and their workers. If the fissure widens and spreads, then the impact on corporate reputations could be very damaging.

While banks were being ‘free and easy’ with their (or other peoples’) money and private equity could do no wrong, there was enough largesse being shared around to quell widespread workplace strife.

But a ghost from the past has re-emerged to challenge the untrammelled power of the corporate world, particularly those companies driven by private equity – worker solidarity.

As Simon Jenkins pointed out in The Times, the two-day strike at the Grangemouth petrochemical complex owned by Ineos is a dispute which strikes a chord with growing numbers of people who have inadequate pension provision.

As I write this, news comes in from another part of South West England of the loss of 390 jobs at a desserts company in Torbay. The axe fell 48 hours after denials by the company that any announcements were pending.

Further examples of such a lack of transparency and accountability will undermine trust at all levels of business – and it will be the reputation of Corporate UK as a whole that will suffer.

Not a million miles from where I sit, a tasty little circulation war has broken out in Stroud, a sleepy little town in the Cotswolds known chiefly for its association with that master of the poetic phrase, Laurie Lee.

Stranger still, it seems that the Newsquest-owned weekly, the Stroud News & Journal (circulation 18,000), has noticed its old classified ads appearing in the pages of, Stroud Life, a news and property magazine recently launched from the Northcliffe stable.

And it was only a month or so ago that the editor of Stroud Life, Ian Mean, featured in my blog for claiming to be “very passionate about the Stroud community.” If the latest events are any guide, the sentiment is unlikely to be reciprocated.

However, those of us who did enjoy the odd pint with Laurie in the Woolpack know that it would have appealed greatly to his mischievous sense of humour.

The aforementioned Independent does however carry a ‘Government Health Warning’ on statistics stories – and not before time.

It may seem rich coming from someone who earns a living from the marketing industry but they are truly the last refuge of the PR scoundrel. Yet as long as BBC Radio Five Live fills its Saturday morning slot with such rubbish – and the nationals follow like sheep – then we are stuck with them.

Ninety per cent of survey stories are not worth the press release paper they are printed on ...

I see that The Independent has a new Editor, Roger Alton, with Simon Kellner being moved upstairs after ten years to be managing director/editor in chief of both the daily and Sunday titles. Alton formerly edited The Observer.

Whatever you think about The Independent, it is different and thought provoking. It also boasts, by some distance, the best Rugby Union journalism, courtesy of my former colleague, Chris Hewett, who manages to provide peerless knowledge, rare insight and a sharp wit in equal measure.

But before you even look at the front page, you know it it’s likely to be yet another doomladen ‘exclusive’. If it isn’t the economy, it’s the climate or public health. Think Frankie Howerd’s TV series ‘Up Pompeii’ and Senna the Soothsayer, who wandered around wailing “Woe, woe and thrice woe!” and you get the drift.

Perhaps Alton will lighten the mood a little.