I've had my dad and his other half down to stay this weekend, and found out some fairly interesting family history. My Dad is a big advocate of the Co-op and basically does as much of his shopping through it as possible (including online) as well as banking with them. This is basically because a)...

awwww.... cute....

I've said this before, but in one sense I find the development of the Stewardship Code (and equivalents elsewhere) a bit odd. Because what they are trying to do is make behaviour that is assumed/argued to be in shareholders' financial self-interest into best practice. Get that? It's a bit like...

Committee on Workers' Capital report (PDF) on engagement over forced labour.

T Blair makes an interesting point, doesn't he? "I think the single biggest danger with the financial crisis was a view that gripped a lot of progressive politicians that somehow people were going to want the state to come back in fashion," he says in his interview. "I didn't think that and don't...

Once again, much respect to Standard Life for putting its various policy type documents in the public domain here. And here (pdf) is its response to the Rights Issue Fee Enquiry, the thing set up under the imprint of the IIC (the body set up after Paul Myners said the ISC wasn't working) to look at...

If they can can do this in the US why not here? And why not as part of the BIS consultation on narrative reporting? US companies face a “logistical nightmare” from a new rule forcing them to disclose the ratio between their chief executive’s pay package and that of the typical employee, lawyers...

live here my whole life

Academic version: "The fear that deviating from one's material self-interest will provoke dismay, suspicion, or derogation can be as powerful a deterrent as the fear that it will prove futile or render one vulnerable to economic exploitation." From The Norm of Self-Interest by Dale...

Approved by the SEC. It will be very interesting to see how this one pans out. The ownership threshold is still high, so it will require collaboration for shareholders to really make it work, but the door is open. More from CorpGov.net here.

Clegg's blaming the ref

I've only just got round to reading Stanley Milgram's own writing on the electric shock experiments, here's a good snippet on ideology: Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behaviour. That is why ideology, an attempt to...

It's caused a right old stink hasn't it? And also drawn out some of the problems facing the Con-Dems. First up, it surely demonstrates why it was stupid to attempt to brand it a progressive budget. It was stupid because a) it is false and b) everyone is completely sick of the P-word in its loose...

I think the FT makes the point quite well about why this isn't just a socially conscious celeb issue: As an investment, Vedanta has its attractions. Anil Agarwal, the chairman, has expanded the company into a large diversified mining group offering a way into the Indian growth story. The shares,...

err...

The coalition's approval rating has just turned negative. Also the last two polls show us much closer to the Tories, with the LDs definitely in the 12%-13% range. This before the cuts start...

I'm baffled by Guido's logic on the appointment of Matthew "Higher Rate Tax Avoiders Alliance" Elliot to run the anti-AV campaign: With the pro-AV campaign likely to be run out of Cowley Street, or at least by LibDem proxies, it seems wise to choose someone who is not a Conservative Party figure,...

get a load of this: April 2010: "we agree with the Government that the threshold for approval of a hostile takeover should be raised to a shareholder majority of two-thirds" July 2010: "we are not convinced that raising the acceptance threshold for a takeover offer is the best way to tackle...

From ecoDa's response to the EC Green Paper on BOFI governance: the views of institutional investors with respect to corporate governance are not necessarily synonymous with good governance from a long term sustainability perspective. They reflect the self-interest of a specific governance actor...