Which cook will serve the economy best?

Yesterday lunchtime the Bank of England's monetary policy committee caught everyone on the hop by cutting UK interest rates. Three quarters of an hour later the European Central Bank surprised no-one when it left eurozone rates on hold.

Two central banks, two very different responses. Is one wrong? Answer, yes. Which one? Almost certainly the ECB.

True enough the two banks are setting rates for two separate economies - if you treat the single currency zone as one, which is tricky, but another story. And, yes, there are big differences.

But there is one overwhelming factor which is common to the UK and euroland - a slowing global economy. The MPC is sufficiently concerned to shrug off house price rises that would normally have inflation hawks reaching for the valium. By contrast the ECB appeared unmoved in the face of the worsening plight of euroland's biggest economies.

It is perfectly possible that the MPC and the US federal reserve have overcooked the rate-cutting programme. Cheaper borrowing takes time to work through the real economy - though its effect on sentiment is rather quicker. But cuts can rapidly be reversed.

By the same token the ECB could argue that it will be able to move swiftly if necessary, though its next formal meeting is four weeks away. It could equally argue that a quarter point cut yesterday would only have been effective at the margins. It might even claim Bundesbank-style toughness in the face of inflation.

The snag is, the impression left is that the ECB was in no shape to cut rates even if it wanted to. Its method of determining policy - a mixture of money supply numbers and other inflation indicators - is less than easy to decipher. The lack of minutes from its deliberations makes its intentions hard to read. Its mandate can at times make it look inflexible, its method often gives an appearance, however unfair, of uncertainty. Yesterday it somehow contrived to look both - even by doing nothing.

Gravy train

When Iceland chairman David Price takes shareholders' questions at the supermarket chain's AGM in September, he can expect a rough ride - and an absolutely justified one. For even when corporate excess and rewards for failure are the norm, Iceland's boardroom bonanza takes some beating.

Take Malcolm Walker, the company's former chairman. Remember him? The lucky Iceland founder who cashed in £13m of shares near their peak, completely unaware that the group's sales were at that very moment falling through the floor? Somehow he managed to make more from the company last year - when profits turned to losses and the share price halved - than he did a year earlier. He even got £150k to compensate him for the loss of "performance-related" share options. What performance? We can only guess.

Russell Ford, the man who masterminded the organic ranges, and Andy Pritchard, the finance boss, got even bigger performance-related rewards. For services to corporate crises perhaps?

Meanwhile the wily Stuart Rose - undisputed king of the pay-outs, having trousered more big cheques than Rupert Bear - snuck off to Arcadia before the fish fingers hit the fan with £2.5m from his Booker share options. Luckily, he took cash rather than shares in the newly merged group that he was so devoted to that he legged it within a matter of months. His equally fortunate sidekick Charles Wilson followed his master with £1.7m.

It is not as if this gravy train has shuddered to a halt with the new Iceland supremos. They have been given £400,000 - on top of salary - for their work on the group's recovery so far, and so that they could halt a legal action to recover that amount from their previous employer, Wickes.

No matter at all that so far there is no sign of any upturn, and that the main beneficiary from halting the legal action was Wickes.

Mr Price has his work cut out thinking up excuses for this inexcusable excess.

Calling time

When Pubmaster raised its bid for Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries to £485m on Friday, the outcome of this almost year-long battle seemed as hard to call as ever. Since then, opinion has hardened in favour of the bid. Wolves's vertically integrated model, with breweries and a pub estate, is desperately unfashionable. Beers rely on big marketing budgets, not tied pubs, to win over drinkers nowadays. Wolves plans an £80m roll-out of Bostin Local neighbourhood pubs, but with just 15 outlets it's relatively untested.

Investors are being asked to trust a management which has been through more strategies than the Conservative Party, and which undermined its credibility by attempting a management buyout at 475p a share - well below its claims of "fair value". Time, gentlemen from Wolverhampton, please.