>> If you’re confused by an aspect of your money or need help with a more specific financial matter why not ask Jo direct and email her at Jo.Thornhill@fmwf.com.

YH writes: I am in the process of buying a new house and need to get buildings insurance in place. There is a large lime tree in the street outside the property. Do I need to declare this on my insurance application and will insurers cover me if the tree causes subsidence? There are some cracks in the pavement around the tree and I am a bit concerned.

Jo Thornhill replies:

When you apply for buildings insurance all insurers will ask if there are any signs of subsidence at the property. If you haven’t already you should get a full structural survey done on the property for your own peace of mind and find out if it has been underpinned due to subsidence.

Scott Oliver, senior underwriter for Direct Line home insurance, says: ‘The structural survey will determine whether the house has already suffered any structural movement caused by the tree. Such movement may not be visible to the naked eye. The survey will help the purchaser to decide whether to proceed in buying the home and will also provide answers to any questions an insurer may have.

‘A solicitor should also be able to find out whether the property has been underpinned in the past or suffered structural damage.’

If there has not been subsidence some insurers will still ask about trees which are in close proximity to the house. You may need to measure the exact distance and it is important to be honest and disclose all information when asked. There is no point withholding information from any insurer as this only renders any insurance policy invalid.

Not all insurers will ask questions about trees. If you are not specifically asked about trees you do not need to disclose the information.

Graeme Trudgill, spokesman at the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA), the trade body which represents brokers, says the consumer watchdog the Financial Ombudsman Service would uphold any claim in your favour as the insurer should ask questions that are material to them at the point of sale.

But that said, Trudgill advises that if you have serious concerns about the tree it will probably give peace of mind to disclose the information to the insurer.

An independent broker can help with any concerns and BIBA’s Find a Broker service (0870 950 1790) can locate specialists in this field and those who have experience in the area.

If the tree is in the street outside your house and is on local authority land it is worth finding out if the tree is in a conservation area or under a protection order.

This could cause problems later if the tree is found to be causing movement or undermining the property. Ask how often the council maintains the tree, known as pollarding. For a large lime tree this should probably be done every one to two years to control growth.

Six groups told the Guardian that a narrative of “benefits scroungers or fakers” was making disabled people increasingly become the target of resentment, which some organisations fear could spill over into hate crimes.

The charities – Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire Disability, the National Autistic Society, Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and Disability Alliance – said inflammatory media played a part, but laid the blame largely with ministers and civil servants for repeatedly highlighting supposed mass abuse of the system, it was reported.

The Government has pledged to cut the bill for disability living allowance (DLA), which is to be replaced by the personal independence payment (PIP), by 20% by 2015/16.

Last month, minister for disabled people Maria Miller said: “In the past DLA has been poorly managed so we now have a situation where there are hundreds of millions of pounds of overpayments and the vast majority of people get the benefit for life without systematic checks to see if their condition has changed.”

Last April, employment minister Chris Grayling said the “vast majority” of new claimants for sickness benefits were in fact able to go back to work, after official figures showed three-quarters of applicants for employment and support allowance (ESA) failed to qualify for assistance.

Tom Madders, head of campaigns at the National Autistic Society, told the newspaper: “The Department for Work and Pensions is certainly guilty of helping to drive this media narrative around benefits, portraying those who received benefits as workshy scroungers or abusing a system that’s really easy to cheat.”

Some disabled people avoid going out because of the hostile climate, or avoid using facilities such as designated parking bays if they “don’t look disabled”, it was claimed.

According to polling by Scope, in September two-thirds of people with disabilities said they had experienced recent hostility or taunts, up from 41% four months before.

Scope chief executive Richard Hawkes said: “Disabled people tell us that increasingly people don’t believe that they are disabled and suddenly feel empowered to question their entitlement to support.”

Guy Parckar, policy manager for Leonard Cheshire, spoke of an “incredibly strong focus on benefit fraud” within the DWP, which he said was “mentioned at all possible opportunities”.

“There is the impact of potential hate crime, and the issues around that,” he told the Guardian.

The charities’ comments come after a warning that highly vulnerable households could be harmed by the Government’s planned £26,000 annual benefit cap.

EntrepreneurEmma Harrison, who was appointed by David Cameron to get families back into work, said she was concerned parents of severely disabled children could lose out.

While she accepted the need for welfare reform, she told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “I think that in all big policies that there are going to be people who are going to be trapped, and I think we need to be really, really careful we don’t catch the wrong people.”

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokeswoman said: “We are absolutely committed to supporting disabled people and whilst we already have laws in place to ensure equality, we need to work together and do more to change negative attitudes.

“That is why we have recently launched a consultation on developing a new cross-government disability strategy, with one of the key areas looking at promoting positive attitudes and behaviours towards disabled people and tackling discrimination and harassment wherever they occur.

“Our welfare reforms are designed to restore integrity into the benefits system and to ensure that everyone who needs help and support receives it.”

The results of a year-long investigation into controversial extended warranties are about to be published – raising fresh doubts over their value to consumers and the way in which they are sold.

Extended warranties – often aggressively promoted by electrical retailers such as Dixons and Comet – are supposed to help if expensive items need repair or replacement after the manufacturer’s guarantee runs out. They can cost almost as much as the item they cover.

The Office of Fair Trading first investigated extended warranties in 2001, and in 2005 it introduced tighter rules on selling them. The watchdog later found some shops were ignoring the rules, eventually leading to the current investigation.

As they put their final touches to the report, OFT officials will be aware of tough action being taken by authorities in other countries. In December, the Italian equivalent fined computer giant Apple £750,000 for allegedly mis-selling expensive warranties to customers who had no need for them.

Research by Financial Mail – summarised in the table above - has revealed that the price of many warranties is vastly disproportionate both to the cost of the item covered and to the likelihood of a repair being needed.

Dixons Retail, which also owns Currys and PC World, is particularly expensive. It urges customers to buy three or five-year plans called Whatever Happens. The ‘premier’ version of this warranty can cost the equivalent of more than 80 per cent of the price of the item.

We found Dixons offering a £293 Hotpoint washing machine where the accompanying warranty cost £239 (82 per cent). For a tumble dryer and fridge-freezer, the plans cost almost 60 per cent of the item. Warranties from Comet, Argos and John Lewis were consistently cheaper, although even these may not be worth the money.

Research by consumer group Which? based on annual surveys of its membership going back a decade reveals the likelihood of big items needing repair is low and falling. The results suggest there is roughly a one in ten chance that a major appliance will require repairing in the first five to six years.

For TVs, the likelihood is about one in 20. Yet Dixons, Comet and other stores still recommend warranties costing more than a third of the price of a new set. Of the major retailers examined by Financial Mail, only John Lewis has acknowledged the growing reliability of modern sets, offering a free fiveyear guarantee on all its TVs.

There is no clear information on how many extended warranties are sold, although the OFT believes £750million is spent every year. In the past, it was estimated warranties accounted for almost half of Dixons’ profits. And last year, Financial Mail revealed that at Comet, part of the Kesa group, a loss of £40million on product sales was reduced to less than £10million thanks to income from warranties.

Consumers appear increasingly cynical, as Financial Mail discovered in a straw poll of shoppers at a retail park near Chelmsford, Essex.

Jacqueline Slater was pleased with Comet’s £180 price for a Proline slimline dishwasher. But she was ‘less than impressed’ to be hounded to take out a five-year ExtraCare Service Plan. This cost £70 – more than a third of the machine’s price.

Jacqueline, 69, from Chelmsford, said: ‘The sales assistant wouldn’t take no for an answer – she even haggled on the warranty price by lowering it to £50. But with a one-year manufacturer’s guarantee, I felt this warranty was unnecessary so I didn’t take it.’

Other shoppers agreed. Maria Warry, out with her friend Michelle Hunt, was among those who said she would never buy an extended warranty. ‘A key reason for spending a lot of money on quality products is that they won’t break down,’ said Maria, 40, from Ugley, Essex.

Three years ago she spent £900 on an LG washing machine and £600 on a tumble dryer from Currys. Both have served her well.

Maria said: ‘Selling three or fiveyear warranties for several hundred pounds on top of this is nothing short of a rip-off.

‘If there was ever a fault, then the money that you saved by not taking out insurance could be spent on a repairman fixing it – the bill would still probably end up being less.’

But Maria Warry’s view is not shared by everyone. In other research published last month, Which? found 22 per cent of its members had bought an extended warranty, mostly on washing machines.

‘These buyers said warranties provided ‘peace of mind and the convenience of having repairs sorted easily and quickly’.

And stand-alone warranties, sold by firms such as Domestic & General, Warranty Direct and Warranty Care, also show that there is demand.

Such policies typically cover three items – up to a maximum of eight years old – for monthly premiums of about £10.

A Comet spokeswoman says: ‘Customer service is our highest priority and there is no pressure to buy on the spot. Our ExtraCare plans give customers the knowledge and security that if anything does go wrong with their purchase after 12 months, they will be covered. They can obtain a plan up to 30 days after their purchase.’

Ed Connolly, buying director for electricals at John Lewis, says the retailer does not profit from the sale of warranties. ‘If you set off the cost of where we provide free guarantees against the money we make from selling other warranties, we do not make a profit.’

Warranties on white goods such as washing machines are ‘reasonably popular, with a take-up of about one purchaser in ten.

Dixons refused to comment.

When MP Tim Loughton bought a warranty to make sure that any repairs to his wife’s VW Golf would be covered, he believed he was doing the right thing.

Provider Warranty Direct boasted in its literature: ‘Take out our policy and you can be absolutely certain that we will be doing everything in our power to deliver complete satisfaction.’

But the Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham is not impressed. For nine months he has been trying to get an explanation from Warranty and Cardif Pinnacle, the policy’s underwriter, as to why only £733 of a £2,153 repair bill has been met. His case has now gone to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The MP’s problems started last May when his wife, Elizabeth, heard an unusual noise from the car’s engine. The Golf was driven twice more before being booked into a garage near their home in Burgess Hill, West Sussex.

The garage said the flywheel was defective, which in turn had damaged the gearbox. Although both were replaced, Warranty Direct would meet only part of the claim, saying Elizabeth should have realised there was a problem with the car earlier and that the gearbox damage could have been avoided if she had stopped driving sooner. Warranty Direct would also not cover all the labour costs because it said the garage had taken too long to do the repairs.

And Loughton, 49, says the garage gave Warranty a ten per cent discount for the work it had agreed to pay for – but didn’t offer him a similar discount.

‘There appears to be a cosy little arrangement between Warranty, the garages they use and the assessors they employ,’ he says.

Warranty refused to change its position while Cardif Pinnacle failed to respond to the complaint within eight weeks, resulting in his claim to the Ombudsman.

Yet Robert Talbut, chief investment officer for the mutual Royal London and now chairman of investments at the powerful Association of British Insurers, has no truck with over-generous packages for directors.

And he has already made it clear that he expects to see a substantial lowering of pay rates at the banks and a much better-defined basis for deciding top remuneration throughout corporate Britain.

‘To lump Hester in the same camp as those who were in charge during the crisis is completely wrong. We are losing some of the subtleties around the whole debate and I don’t think that is very helpful,’ he says.

‘But there is a really difficult argument, which is how much do we pay for someone who is doing a good job? Overall, I think companies recognise that this public hostility is likely to persist. But it is important these debates are framed in an intelligent way rather than one that will damage the economy.’

Talbut, 51, whose asset management business controls about £40billion, reckons long-term investors have a duty to reward sustainability in business, not just success bought by short-term measures such as reducing investment.

And although major institutions now sit alongside foreign investors and hedge funds on the share register, he says traditional funds – probably accounting for 25 per cent of all shares in the London market – still have a powerful voice.

‘Companies realise that they probably underestimated the value of long-term shareholders a few years back because they could get money from the banks, hedge funds and private equity,’ he says.

‘Now they see having long-term providers of capital on the share register as really beneficial and if it hadn’t been for long-term shareholders, UK plc wouldn’t have been recapitalised after the crisis.’

Talbut does accept, though, that shareholders have played a part in allowing ‘unjustified’ increases in pay packages in the past couple of decades, though he also says remuneration committees have not been robust enough, the role of remuneration consultants has helped to create ‘an arms race’ on boardroom pay and the trend for overly complex pay packages has been unhelpful.

With the Coalition looking desperately to shareholders to extinguish the flames of public fury about pay and bonuses, Talbut recognises he is potentially in the political firing line, but feels that if insurance companies can demonstrate their stewardship credentials, they are more likely to find a willing ear on business issues such as flood defences.

Though his role as head of investments at the ABI has no fixed term, Talbut, an alumni of the prestigious business schools of INSEAD and Harvard, is determined to place some major issues on the agenda immediately.

He wonders whether narrowly defined fiduciary duty, which governs the way in which investment managers ultimately behave, should be extended to take account of issues such as better returns, customer satisfaction and sustainability.

He thinks that customers should be able to choose between ‘stewardship lite’ funds with lower costs or those offering an intensive governance agenda that would probably cost a bit more.

Talbut also wants shareholders to ask themselves what they really want companies to achieve and then to set up ways to pay the boss according to deliverable targets. He believes remuneration packages should be dramatically simplified and that five years should be the minimum period for award payouts.

He also thinks using earnings per share to measure executive performance has had its day.

Talbut believes that it should be replaced by wider measures of a business’s sustainability such as the views of customers, suppliers and employees as well as the record of investment, as executives can make profits look better simply by cutting this to the long-term detriment of their companies.

That said, Talbut, who became an asset manager after graduating in economics from Warwick University only to avoid being sucked into the world of chartered accountancy, does not believe shareholders should micro-manage companies’ affairs for fear that they will create an environment where businesses do not think they can be run sensibly and without undue influence.

‘If we want that then we should try nationalisation,’ he says.

From ‘sympathetic’ enquiries about car accidents to concern that you may have been missold an insurance policy, text spammers – mass senders of unsolicited texts – come in many guises. But from this month they face fines of up to £500,000 as the authorities attempt to clamp down on a fast-growing problem.

One survey found that an astonishing 20 million mobile phone users had received messages such as: ‘Free Msg: Important! Records indicate you are entitled to £3,700 from Mis-Sold Loan Insurance (PPI). To claim reply YES to this message. Thank you.’ Many recipients of this message have never taken out loan insurance.

This is text-spamming – hundreds of thousands of mobile phone users are sent texts promising help with insurance claims or pensions services. They are unsolicited and have been sent without the consent of the recipient – and those responsible can rarely be identified.

The aim is to get a response of any kind. Even a STOP texted back to the sender shows that the mobile number is ‘live’ and is therefore a potential channel of communication. Sending such texts can be a lucrative business – a lead generated by text can be sold for £5 to a claims management firm, which in turn can sell it for £300 to claims solicitors, says the Direct Marketing Association, whose members use texting to market services legitimately. A survey by Royal Bank of Scotators land showed that 11 per cent of all accident claims came from text spamming.

But from this month, the Information Commissioner’s Office has the power to fine organisations that send texts to consumers who did not agree to receive them.

Simon Entwisle, director of operations at the ICO, said: ‘We believe there has been a huge increase towards the end of last year in sending texts to randomly generated numbers.’

In its own survey it quoted several victims of text spamming. One said: ‘The text was sent to my 11-year-old son and to at least two of his school friends. I texted back STOP and received a further text instantly. It’s hard to imagine that there is nothing sinister going on when these messages are received.’

Another said: ‘I was bombarded daily with these after texting STOP to one. I then replied CLAIM to find out who was contacting me. The first time I was called by a company that said it would take the details of my accident and forward them to a solicitor. I then asked how they got my details and they hung up.’ Entwisle said the ICO was determined to trace offenders, but faced a difficult task.

‘The spammers are not easy to track down,’ he said. ‘There is a spider’s web of organisations that are linked in this and everyone we talk to says that as far as they are concerned these leads have been obtained legitimately.’ Text spammers often use pay-asyou-go mobile phone SIM cards hooked up to a computer that can handle 300 or so cards to send automated text messages. The spammers buy SIM cards with a minimum top-up of £5 and are able to send up to 20,000 messages per card.

When mobile phone operators spot a pattern of texts from a SIM card, they can close it down. Mobile oper-disconnected about 2,000 text spammers a month last year – but the spammers simply move on to a new card.

However, Entwisle said the ICO was working on a number of cases and hoped to make an announcement soon. He said complaints about such texts tripled in the past couple of years to 1,607 in the 12 months to the end of January and advised anyone receiving one not to reply in any way.

Mark Brill, chairman of the DMA’s mobile marketing council, said he wanted to see rules enforced and offenders penalised.

‘There are some legitimate claims management firms and some rather shady ones. There seems to be very little requirement in the claims management industry that a lead must be obtained legitimately,’ he said.

Brill runs a legitimate text marketing agency and said any supplier of a list of leads that came from text marketing ought to be able to tell consumers exactly where and when they gave their consent to receive marketing texts.

The claims management companies sell their services to solicitors, who are themselves not allowed to make unsolicited approaches to potential clients.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority said the onus was on solicitors to make sure they received business only through scrupulous methods. But it admitted that there were no specific requirements governing what solicitors should ask.

A spokesman said: ‘Solicitors must be satisfied that the introducer is not doing things the solicitor couldn’t do. Claims management companies are not prevented by their own rules from cold calling by phone, but their rules say they can’t put solicitors in breach of our rules.’

The Ministry of Justice oversees the industry via the Claims Management Regulator. It said: ‘Claims management companies are subject to strict rules of conduct, including on marketing.

‘Sending unsolicited text messages for marketing purposes is a clear breach of these rules.

‘We have made it very clear to businesses that we will not accept any malpractice or attempts to take advantage of consumers. Companies should remain in no doubt that if they breach the rules they will face enforcement action that could result in them being closed down.’

Perhaps the spammers themselves will soon be getting an unwelcome intrusion into their own lives.

How to report those spams

ACCIDENT claims, debts and mis-sold payment protection are the top three subjects of text spamming.

Call the Information Commissioner’s Office 0303 123 1113 helpline if you have responded to a spam text and your details have been passed to a claims company.

To contact your mobile operator about spam texts, call customer services or use one of the following numbers:

Orange, O2 and T-Mobile: Forward the text to 7726; Vodafone: Forward the text to 87726; Three: Forward the text to 37726.

The warning comes as Greece battles to reach a deal with creditors to write off 100 billion euros (£83 billion) of debt and for a fresh 130 billion euro bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Talks have dragged on for weeks, but officials claimed this weekend that a deal was close, though similar claims have been made weekly for the past month.

A default by Greece or any other member state would not automatically lead to that country leaving the euro, but observers believe it would be far more likely.

The potential damage from a eurozone collapse is outlined this weekend by financial IT group SunGard, which provides its APT economic modelling software to 200 investment firms, including hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Its analysis suggests that shares in London would fall by about five per cent if Greece quit the euro. The drop would be as much as 15 per cent if it was joined by Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain.

If the entire single currency zone broke up, the London market is expected to fall by up to 30 per cent.

Under a new policy of disclosure by Amazon, the supermarket giant has been revealed as the ultimate seller of a range of goods – including DVDs and computer games – marketed on Amazon under the trading name of Oakwood Distribution Ltd. Oakwood is a subsidiary of Tesco.

An investigation by Financial Mail found that the price of numerous items, including a box set of the first BBC series of Downton Abbey and a Super Mario computer game, were far cheaper when sold by Oakwood Distribution on Amazon than through the Tesco website.

For example, Downton Abbey is retailing at £7.43 plus £1.26 delivery, a total of £8.69, on Amazon, but £9.97 on Tesco’s site. The Super Mario 3D Nintendo game costs £29.12 via Oakwood on Amazon and £34.97 from Tesco online.

Tesco has regularly been criticised for squeezing suppliers to push the prices on its shelves to rock bottom levels.

Now it seems Amazon’s demands that retailers do not sell more cheaply anywhere, not even on their own sites, may be turning the tables on the supermarket.

Consumers who believe they are supporting independent businesses may not be pleased to find out they are shopping with Tesco.

Critics have accused Tesco of using a different company name to masquerade as a small business on Amazon, claiming this allows it to slip under the radar of consumers who actively choose not to buy from Tesco.

A spokesman for pressure group Tescopoly said: ‘Tesco has already demonstrated a similar method of operating on the High Street through the One Stop chain of convenience stores.

‘This would appear to be another example of Tesco trying to sell more to consumers who think they are getting an independent choice.’

Tesco said: ‘It is public knowledge that Oakwood is part of Tesco.

‘Where we have excess stock it is sold competitively through third-party marketplaces. Many customers prefer to shop direct with Tesco for additional benefits.’

Consumers can check the identity of sellers through Amazon by using the site’s new Detailed Seller Information button.

Last week, Amazon reported a savage fall in profits from $416 million (£263 million) to $177 million for the fourth quarter of 2011.

The figure was $800 million below analysts’ expectations, prompting a nine per cent fall in the share price.

How Tesco has been forced to chage less

According to Facebook’s flotation prospectus last week, its users have registered 100 billion ‘friendships’ since the social network was founded in 2007.

This was just one of a large number of figures contained in documents it filed in preparation for its listing. That will take place in the US, probably on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, and so will not at least initially attract the attention of many British investors.

But the listing, expected to value the group at about $100 billion, may prove a crucial bellwether for the confidence of the world’s financial markets and their willingness to believe in a second internet revolution.

Setting aside the figures of billions of ‘friendships’ or hundreds of millions of ‘monthly active users’, the hard financial numbers make its valuation look rather stretched.

Revenues last year were $3.7 billion, up 87 per cent on 2010, in turn up 154 per cent on 2009. Profits after tax in 2011 were a round $1billion, up 65 per cent on the previous year, which in turn were up 164 per cent on 2009.

These are impressive growth rates, but they have to be to justify the valuation being touted.

If it can double its profits every year for next three to four years, earnings will pass the $10billion mark. That starts to more than justify the mooted valuation.

Given Facebook’s record, it would be a brave observer who said such growth could not happen. But there are a lot of unknowns involved. Can user numbers keep growing at recent rates?

Will advertisers, who are the source of the vast bulk of revenues, see enough real return to keep spending more?

But most crucially, will Facebook keep its preeminent position or will another social network or some other phenomenon take its place?

Few would have dreamed four years ago that it would become what it has. That is the fastmoving and unpredictable nature of the internet. By the same token, it is a gamble to try to predict the twists and turns the internet will take over the next four years. Can Facebook grow at 100 per cent or so every year for three years? Maybe. But equally, maybe not.

The cautionary tale came last week with internet retailer Amazon’s latest figures, which showed sales up ‘only’ 35 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011. The shares fell seven per cent in a day on the news.

In the world of dotcom 2.0, expectations seem to be dizzying. The stock market cost of failing to hit those expectations is likely to be equally high.

If Facebook floats at anything like the values suggested, it will have to meet some very high hopes. If it fails, founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will need every friend he can get.

Most dramatically, the first attempt in 2000 to merge drug giants Glaxo Wellcome and America’s SmithKline Beecham fell victim to a spectacular personality clash between Sir Richard Sykes and Jan Leschly.

So we must listen a bit more seriously to the merger plans of Glencore – the Swiss-based commodities trading house that listed somewhat controversially last year and whose shares have floundered ever since, reflecting market nerves about the number of billionaires on the board, substandard governance and drift in the commodities cycle.

As part of the deal, chief executive Ivan Glasenberg is offering to allow his opposite number at mining group Xstrata – his old South African school chum Mick Davis – to become boss of the combined group. By many standards of leadership, both men are in the top bunch. Both are forceful characters whom it is hard to see coexisting happily in the same boardroom, let alone with one able to boss the other around. (Read our story here)

The one sensible conclusion we can draw (other than that Glasenberg plans to knife Davis in the back as soon as he gets close enough) is that Glasenberg is convinced of the synergies and long-term business prospects in combining the groups and is willing to count his money rather than exert his power.

Which leaves just a couple of questions. If the case for the merger is so compelling, why is Glencore not paying a premium to buy the 70-odd per cent of Xstrata it doesn’t already own?

And if the deal gets under way, which could be as early as this Tuesday by some accounts, will Sir John Bond, the Xstrata chairman and a veteran of HSBC, be strong enough to keep the peace in the boardroom?
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AT THE risk of Luddism, I cannot see Facebook as a persuasive investment. With a putative price tag of £65billion, it appears the only reason this business is being brought to market is to make its employees and some early backers very rich indeed.

Mark Zuckerberg, its young founder whose paper wealth will total nearly $30billion, has come up with not one project he needs to raise money for: indeed Facebook, unlike many other high-tech launches, has quite enough cash to do whatever it wants.

There are many reasons to fear this one. Zuckerberg will retain a controlling stake – in perpetuity, it appears – as he has given himself the right to name a successor, and his friends have given him voting rights over their shares, so if he goes potty no one can get rid of him.

But while he knocks around for ever, many of the bright young things running this business might decide to cash in their chips now they have a currency to trade.

Don’t forget, too, that there is evidence Facebook usage has peaked in Britain and the US. Though the business has been doubling the number of its users every year, there is a limit. With one billion this year such expansion can continue only for the next two or three years before the entire planet is covered.

Advertisers will, I am sure, be happy to pay nominal sums to pry into the private habits of billions. But many Facebook users are young and do not have the affluence of Zuckerberg, rendering them of limited use to brands offering more than burgers or inexpensive coffees.
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WHY all the hand-wringing at BAE’s failure to land a big contract to supply Typhoon jets to India when our own Ministry of Defence has just given notice that it no longer intends to favour domestic manufacturers of equipment for the Armed Forces?

Procurement at the MoD is a joke, but without launch orders, our contractors will find it hard to convince other countries to buy their wares.

By all means stress the need for free markets – just not so crudely that it is at the expense of our national champions.