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Nervous times for Olympic partners
There'll be sweaty palms this morning at the likes of Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and Samsung, some of the long-standing Olympic partners who invest heavily in their relationship with the Games as the cornerstone of their global marketing.

Sunday’s farcical scenes in snow-bound London, as a bunch of 'torch guardians' in blue and white tracksuits in alliance with the Met police completely failed to quell 'Free Tibet' supporters at the Olympic torch ceremony, will have taken some of the gloss off the Beijing Games already.

Today (Monday) the circus moves to Paris and goodness knows what will ensue when the CRS riot cops get to grip with the protesters.

It's clear already that the planned leisurely stroll around the globe for the Olympic torch will have to be revised radically.

Talk of a boycott (even if it's only the opening ceremony) will mount and advertisers all across the world will be revising their plans.

Nike, for example, is not a long-term Olympic partner or even a Beijing partner (Adidas is) but you can bet that it's set aside hundreds of millions of ad dollars to 'invade' the Games.
It just might be planning to save itself some money.

It's an even bigger challenge for China too, of course. China is hardly known for its Olympian ideals (the notion that it's better to take part than to win wouldn't cut much ice in Beijing or Shanghai) and its status as a growing political and economic force could be badly shaken by what is already a PR disaster.

Sometimes politics and business just don't mix
They certainly don’t at the moment for Burson Marsteller CEO Mark Penn, who's just lost the company's Colombian government account as well as his billet as Hillary Clinton's chief 'strategist'.

As well as advising Hillary in the Democratic Party primaries, Penn was helping the Colombian government try to secure a free trade agreement with the US. But Hillary's blue collar constituency is worried about losing homes and jobs and so increasingly protectionist. Hillary opposes the deal with Colombia and so Penn has had to withdraw on both fronts.

PR and lobbying firm Burson Marsteller is owned by Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP, which seems to actively encourage its execs to take a role in politics (useful, of course, if your candidate wins).

One of his wunderkinds, David Muir, has just taken a role advising Gordon Brown in Downing Street (where an essay he’d written on 'leaderless organisations' immediately caught up with him).

In the TV drama series about Madison Avenue, 'Mad Men', fictional creative director Don Draper initially had reservations about advising Republican vice-president and hot election favourite Richard Nixon in his 1960 contest against the unknown John Kennedy. No good would come of it, thought Don, rightly as it happened. Perhaps Sir Martin should tune in.

Microsoft plays hardball with Yahoo!
Yahoo! executives must be feeling rather friendless just now. Its advisers have been scouring the world to find an ally or 'white knight' (rival bidder) to keep it out of the clutches of Microsoft. But, so far, not one has turned up.

Now Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has given Yahoo! three weeks to accept his $44bn bid or, he says, he'll try to change the board.

Yahoo! is saying it'll tough it out even if no ally emerges but its shareholders won’t want what is (currently) the only bid in town to go away. But is Yahoo! really worth $44bn?

It's clearly losing in search to Google and its advertising suite of services is facing fierce competition from both old-established companies with big pockets (Microsoft) and new upstarts who are fleeter of foot than the giants.

Its best option might be to try to buy someone itself, but the shareholders might not wear this.

Rocky start for Jaguar and Land Rover at Tata
Indian firm Tata Motors’ shares have fallen 23% since it struck a deal to buy Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in January and now credit rating agency S&P has reduced its investment status from BB+ to BB (AAA is good).

Tata Motors, which is part of the huge Tata conglomerate, borrowed $2bn to buy the car marques from Ford. Jaguars and Land Rovers are still made in the UK, so this will not be welcome news for Midlands workers or the UK government.

What will the Bank of England do?
On Thursday, its Monetary Policy Committee will pronounce on interest rates and the only question (surely) is whether they go for a quarter point or half point cut.

If it's the expected quarter point then the banks will just trouser the difference and the mortgage famine (amongst other things) will go on.

Half a point would put the banks on the spot. Expect the pressure for a half point cut to mount in the run-up to Thursday.

Stephen Foster is a former news editor of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, former editor of Marketing Week and Evening Standard ad columnist. He is a partner in Editorial Partnership and writes the blog and Politics of the Media for Brand Republic.