The transactions have pushed the volume of homes still on the market down by 10 per cent, to the lowest level since 2004.The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets on Wednesday and Thursday to set interest rates with its full complement of nine economists for the first time since March. Only one City economist does not believe they will leave the base rate unchanged at 4.75 per cent.. Britain’s biggest companies have utterly failed to improve the number of female directors on their boards over the past year, a report published by Deloitte today shows. The accountant said just 3 per cent of executive directors are women, exactly the same number as 12 months ago. It also said executive pay and bonuses had continued to rise at a faster rate than benefits paid to ordinary staff.
Deloitte’s survey of all the companies in the FTSE 350 index reveals that just nine are run by women. Only two of these women run FTSE 100 companies – Dame Marjorie Scardino, the chief executive of Pearson, and Dorothy Thompson, the chief executive of Drax Power.Deloitte said female representation among non-executive directors was only marginally better, with women accounting for just 10 per cent of all posts in the FTSE 350, compared with 9 per cent last year. There are just three female non-executive chairmen at the top 350 companies.The report shows high-profile women bosses – such as Dame Marjorie and Baroness Hogg, chairman of 3i – remain a tiny minority, despite pressure for more women in the boardroom.Carol Arrowhead, the head of the remuneration practice at Deloitte, said the report was disappointing.

At least they’re bloody trying.”And so what threatened to be a curt exchange develops into an expansive exploration of the future of media, of how Dennis blew his chance to become a national newspaper owner, of how he deeply regrets his failure to go into women’s magazines, of his plans to invest massively in The Week, of the holy mess that is the UK edition of Maxim, and how that global title has done most to amass his £715m fortune, including an estate in Warwickshire and a villa in Mustique.Considering his vast wealth and the fact that this notorious hedonist is Britain’s most colourful media mogul, Dennis is relatively little known by the public. He takes the red grapes from his neighbour – I know him – and he puts them in these big fishing nets, he dips ‘em in his vat overnight, then he gets up in the morning and chucks it away, and it gives it a little blush.” Then he’s off again: No, I love The Independent, power to their bloody elbow. There’s only really three quality newspapers left in Britain because I don’t count The Times any more.”He digresses, addressing the matter of the wine, which has a slight pink hue “It’s not a ros?by the way. “If I was up against Rupert Murdoch I’d be doing the same thing It’s hard.

Critiquing The Independent’s recent (Red) issue, designed by Giorgio Armani, he says: “Stop sending them the bloody money Then you would probably do something for Africa. Because the Africans would soon take care of their own despots, they’re not children. But no, we keep on pumping the money in, so the tyrants and despots can still pay the salaries of the goons in police uniforms and army uniforms, yeah?”Then, as soon as the first drops of wine splash into the glass, Dennis’s tone brightens He loves The Independent really. There is plenty of evidence of Blair veering towards totalitarianism, much that is more poignant than the proposed introduction of ID cards.Last week I surfed …I’ve been researching the route for an annual literary walk that two friends and I have been doing for years. The Independent? Hypocritical bastards, holier-than-thou bastards .. you know … yeah?”

It is not the most auspicious start to an interview as publisher Felix Dennis stomps around his sumptuous Soho pied-?erre.
A pop of a cork is not enough to interrupt the diatribe as Dennis emerges on to his roof terrace carrying a bottle of Pouilly-Fum?nd two large glasses. Mental illness is, inexplicably, one of Britain’s cultural taboos, so it was encouraging to see such an honest and insightful programme on the subject.
Last week I listened to…Radio 4, and was thrilled to hear Gavin Esler’s programme Letters from Guantanamo.

A more official site, www.somme-battlefields.co.uk/ en, has a section dedicated to planning a trip around the battlefields, suggests how to make the most of the time, and gives details of tourist offices, the maps to use and lists a calendar of specific events.Clive Stafford Smith is founder of Reprieve, the human rights charity that provides legal support for prisoners on Death Row and in Guantanamo Bay. This year’s theme is First World War poetry, and I arranged a 120-mile journey around the River Somme, which I researched on a great website that commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, at www.essentialsomme . It offers tips on preparing for the journey, and ideas for related reading. That’s the point of you, Mad Mel, and why we adore you so much.* IT IS one of the enduring myths about print journalists that we are bitter, carping and envious towards one another’s rare successes. What cobblers this is, and I’d like today to offer to my friend and occasional opponent across the green baize Victoria Coren, winner of that huge European Poker Tour event in London last week and with it the £500,000 first prize, my most warm and heartfelt congra.. My most warm and heartf.. No, it won’t come Perhaps next week.. It’s one of the major problems with politics today: nobody seeks to inspire anyone.On the back page I noticed an image depicting Blair, with a barcode in the form of a Hitler-style moustache, customised by a group that is against ID cards I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or horrified. Most powerful was Al Hajj’s reference to the Statue of Liberty and what a prison without laws means in terms of US justice.Last week I read…The Guardian has been dominated by the endless tedium of the Manchester conference. There wasn’t a moment when people told the youth of the world why they should care.

It featured one of my clients, Sami Al Hajj, an Al Jazeera journalist, who is no more a terrorist than my grandmother. It was the first programme about the matter that had no inaccuracies, for which I must praise producer Kate Taylor. It was an amazing piece, for which I respect Fry all the more. I represent many clients with the disorder, including a man detained in Guantanamo, who is continuously interrogated, despite his conviction that the world is about to be destroyed by a snowball. Last week I watched… I watched a BBC2 documentary by Stephen Fry (right), about bipolar disorder.