When Sugar doesn't taste so sweet

Tim Montgomerie posts on a sour Sugar:

Alan Sugar is a prat. He's a dipstick. He's a wally. (As well as not having an enormous intellect).

Roger Alton, Matthew d’Ancona, Liz Anderson, Martin Bright, Jeremy Clarke, Nick Cohen, Nicholas Coleridge, Lloyd Evans, James Forsyth, Julia Hobsbawm, Rachel Johnson, Dylan Jones, Mary Killen, India Knight, Rod Liddle, John Micklethwait, Fraser Nelson, Matthew Parris, Stephen Pollard, Hugo Rifkind, Andrew Roberts, Alan Rusbridger, Sebastian Shakespeare, Paul Staines, Sarah Standing, Mary Wakefield and Toby Young have written this letter to The Spectator in protest at Lord Sugar's threat to sue The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts for calling him a ‘telly peer’ who ‘doesn’t seem to have an enormous intellect’.

One of the letter's signatories, Matthew Parris, has gone further still in today's Times:

"This is outrageous. What a prat. What a dipstick. What a wally. Alan Sugar is threatening to sue my former fellow-sketchwriter, Quentin Letts. A letter to The
Spectator this week, to which I have just added my name, protests that the libel
lawyers Herbert Smith have written to Mr Letts complaining that on LBC radio he
called their client a telly peer who doesn’t seem to have an enormous intellect; and that a writ will follow unless he pays Lord Sugar’s legal costs to date, donates an undisclosed sum to charity and gives a written undertaking never to criticise their client again. Find me a bucket, I feel sick. This from a delicate flower who has made his media career verbally humiliating people."

Matthew Parris at his best. Read his full column here.

Bonuses not just for banks

The following is an anonymous question from a civil servant requesting legal advice from a well-known trade union. I only wish I was making it up, or that it was sent with lashings of irony. Let's hope that the recent talk of cuts creates a dent in the bonuses of Assembly fat cats.

Q I am used to receiving an end of year bonus but I didn't get one this time. Am I entitled to it?

A You are only entitled to a bonus if it is specified in your contract. If you have been receiving a bonus for many years, it may be possible to argue that it has become custom and practice and therefore an unwritten part of your contract, in which case a non-payment could amount to an unlawful deduction of wages. But you would need to have all the facts about why it has not been paid before raising the issue with your manager. Discuss the situation with your PCS rep before doing anything further.

[Source: PCS Union]