Losing more than a name

What’s in a name? A heck of a lot. The news today that the name of Beatties is to be stripped from stores across the West Midlands is a bitter blow.

In some remote and foreign boardroom it may make some sort of sense.

In the curious world of finance, peopled with bright young things who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, such a step may be greeted with wild excitement.

But what about the shoppers?

For generations of Midland folk “going down to Beatties” was a ritual and a joy.

It meant a special sort of shopping, a chance to dress up, to see and to be seen. It was a shopping experience to cherish, to pass on from mother to daughter and father to son.

“We bought it at Beatties” was the ultimate expression of quality. It meant these were quality goods, selected by the store’s buyers with discretion and purchased with pride.

And now, all that is to go. The parent company, Baugur (now, there’s a name no-one has ever heard of) has decreed, following its takeover of the House of Fraser chain, that old names such as Beatties, Binns and Army & Navy are to be scrapped.

There is clearly no room for sentiment in the hard-nosed world of selling socks and toasters.

Out with the old, in the shape of a store founded in Wolverhampton in 1877. In with the new in the form of a promised £170 million of investment.

But why can this region not have both? Why must new money go with such a bizarre clearing-out of something old and cherished?

In business, nothing is more important than a good reputation. The new owners of Beatties are ignoring that old wisdom.

We only hope, for the sake of local jobs, they have thought this plan through and that, a few years down the line, they are not exposed as silly Baugurs.

Deception behind interest rate rise

Another little hike in interest rates, another little act of public deception.

We do not blame the Bank of England. It is charged by Chancellor Gordon Brown with keeping inflation down to two per cent.

But two per cent of what? The index used by Whitehall excludes rising house prices, fuel and many other factors which are pushing up prices far faster than the 2.5 per cent or so generally quoted.

In some households, particularly those with pensioners who spend a lot of their income to keep warm, the true year-on-year rise is five per cent or more.

Today’s hike is hoped to slow down inflation, but assumes that inflation is a gently trotting donkey. In reality, it is more like a raging bull.