The landlords, who make up the bulk of Focus DIY’s creditors, will join other creditors to vote on the proposed Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which it is hoped will keep the retailer in business.

While Focus DIY is confident that the rescue plan will get sufficient backing, the British Property Federation who represent the UK landlords, have called for tougher controls regarding insolvencies. The call is backed by members Aviva, British Land, Hermes and Land Securities.

Focus DIY is owned by US private equity group Cerberus.

B&Q have teamed up with another old favourite, Jacqui Smith our Home Secretary in a bid to stave off an increase in burglaries that have been predicted by Smith and the Labour government as the country goes into recession.

From today householders will be able to contact a hotline where they can ‘order’ the ultimate weapon against burglary – a 15% discount voucher, redeemable against any DIY security product sold in B&Q.

As an additional bonus, but only for those unfortunate to have been burgled already, the Police will issue victims with another voucher, this time for 10% of DIY items in your local Focus store.

Only last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the press and public alike  to ignore the furore over Smith’s extraordinary expenses and allowances claims and instead to look at the achievements that she has made in her job as Home Secretary.

This is the result. Smith says this is a sensible way of preventing a burglary crime wave. She added, “I want us all to work together to stop those criminals who may think they can take advantage in tough times.”

The technology firm, based at the Pentlands Science Park outside Edinburgh, has been developing microsphere-related technology for use in a series of applications. In this case, the technology is aimed at weight reduction of aircraft paints with the subsequent advantage of significant savings in fuel consumption and carbon foot-printing.

Tom Johnston, Microsphere Technology’s Operations Director, said that the deal signed with the help of Glasgow based IP specialists Metis Partners, provided yet another opportunity to push the company’s innovative research towards full commercialisation: “Signing a license deal with a company of the reputation and standing of Trelleborg is an invaluable validation of MTL’s low density pigment technology. The environmental and economic requirement for weight-reducing technologies in the aerospace industry is clearly understood and Trelleborg have seen the value of MTL’s new material in addressing these requirements. We look forward to working closely with Trelleborg to move the technology towards the market as rapidly as possible.”

“MTL is currently pursuing other exciting opportunities in the areas of water treatment, cosmetics and fluid dynamics. Our coated microspheres offer innovative solutions across many sectors and we have been very encouraged by the level of interest we have received to date.”

Microsphere Technology uses hollow glass microspheres as a platform on which to layer other materials such as metals and pigments for specific technology applications. Technology products under development include titania-coated microspheres for use in sunscreen, fluorescent microspheres for use in the flow visualisation design industry, as well as coated spheres for breaking down many organic and inorganic pollutants in wastewater.

About microspheres

Microspheres come in a variety of different forms; solid, porous or hollow, plastic, ceramic or glass, coated or uncoated. They can be man-made or mined from natural sources. Some are recovered from the ash produced in power stations while others can even be harvested from volcanoes.

Microspheres are already present in a wide range of consumer products, including many cosmetics, paints, fillers, insulators, buoyancy aids, sealers, adhesives and plastics. Coating a single large aircraft requires hundreds of kilos of paint, and given that these large aircraft also burn prodigious amounts of fuel, even modest savings in the weight of paint on the surface will have considerable knock on effect on fuel consumption.

Despite pleas from Gordon Brown to the public, not to panic buy, the message as always had the reverse effect, with basements and garages being stockpiled across the country, to be on the safe side.

The tanker drivers are believed to have agreed to a 14% pay deal over two years, although details are sketchy currently.

The government believes that if the strike goes ahead, it could affect just 10% of the countries filling stations, they also say they have  stocks in place around the country to safeguard the emergency services.

Around 500 drivers are involved in the dispute, all are employed by Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport, joint sole distributors to around 1,000 Shell filling stations.

The government has been encouraged by the fact that the dispute has now been taken to ACAS and hopes that plans for talks tomorrow will reach a satisfactory agreement.

Orders from Mexico, Eastern Europe, South America and the Middle East have been mentioned although the eventual whereabouts of the vehicles is a closely guarded secret known only to those involved.

In 2006 the Shanghai based plant manufactured just 92 taxis, but orders now in the pipeline means that the China output would be at a similar level to that of the Coventry based UK plant.

Shares fell 5% on the news and weren’t helped by continued uncertainty around MS’s bid for Yahoo!. The bid price is already seen as high and the attempted acquisition may yet descend into a hostile bid. This confirms its committed ambitions to move into the online advertising sector.

One big dent in profits was the $1.62bn fine for breach of EU competition rules.

Gaming products continue 68% year on year growth, strongly supported by Xbox 360. 

Jim McAuslan, Balpa’s general secretary wrote: “It is with great sorrow and acute embarrassment that BA pilots have witnessed the unhappy shambles that the opening of T5 has become, Banks, institutional investors and analysts need to wake up to the fact that there is something very wrong at the heart of this company that is making our once great brand a laughing stock.The airline can and should make Britain proud but a fundamental change of attitude is required from the very highest levels of BA management.”

The letter was aimed at City institutions as well as the government, with McAuslan calling on them to “act on how [BA] is ‘led’”. Balpa represents 3,000 BA pilots.

BA Chief Executive Willie Nash has refused to resign over the T5 problems, which have so far cost the Airline £16million in two weeks. A spokesman for BA reported,  “Willie Walsh has said that he is not going to resign and he’s determined to resolve the problems associated with the initial move to T5.”

The cash offer of 270p per share values the software group at £190million. The group supplies the software to almost 90% of councils in the UK.

3i investors have created a new company Cornwall Bidco, specifically for making the offer, and will supply a management team to run the business and executives who will own a minority shareholding.

Civica’s non executive chairman has backed the offer, saying “We believe this offer represents an attractive premium and provides certainty of value for our shareholders.”

Head of technology at 3i, Simon Freer said “Technology is a key sector focus for 3i and we are delighted to be in a position to invest in Civica.”

‘We are looking forward to working with the management team, lead by Simon Downing, to help the business achieve its full potential,’ he added.

The Airline has also called in IT experts to fix the malfunctioning luggage system. Thirty seven flights were cancelled yesterday and a further fifty four will be scrapped today.

BA said that 400 staff were brought in to help sift through the the thousands of bags that have been separated from their owners since the disastrous debut of the £4.3bn terminal.

Despite a six month trial of the T5 system, it failed to record the glitches in the system. The terminal is unable to work to its full capacity as things are and a return to normality is not expected this week. More cancellations are expected throughout the next few days, although BA is committed to a ‘progressively larger flying programme during the week.’

The terminal is designed to process 70,000 a day, but in its ’soft phase’ should handle 40,000, something that it is clearly not able to do at present.