Over four years if there has been no business around we have not chased it

“Over four years, if there has been no business around we have not chased it. This included a 16 per cent cut in the division’s workforce, although Amstrad’s total payroll, after acquisitions, rose from 842to 1,102.Mr Sugar said the group continued to reduce inventories and to build up the net cash position, with the cash pile now standing at £136.4m. Specific figures were not given.Overheads costs in the consumer electronic business were reduced from £13m to £9m. The main sales difficulties were with computers and satellite dishes in the UK and Germany.Mr Rogers said that Viglen, the personal computer business bought by Amstrad last year and which sells directly to the customer, traded profitably, as did Dancall, the mobile phone business, and Betacom, which makes cordless telephones. European markets remained difficult, particularly for older products. He has more than doubled his forecast for 1996to £22m.Traditionally, the most profitable period for Amstrad has been the first half, which includes Christmas sales. But Mr Sugar said the business had undergone change and was much less seasonal.Sales in the period rose from £139.9m to £142.9m, and the interim dividend was held at 1p.David Rogers, chief executive, who came on board last year, said Amstrad’s core consumer electronics business had continued to trade at a loss.

One former resident remembers her as loving, but disciplinarian, quick with her cane.”She always said she wanted to be buried here,” said the archdeacon.But lately, as Miss Hutchins sits on her verandah beside the flowering temple-tree, her thoughts are straying back to the England of her youth. “Whenever I speak to her in English,” said Mrs Mohan, “Miss Muriel gets in one of her moods She keeps asking me to take her back home to see her people But that’s impossible. I don’t think she would survive the journey.”For nearly five years no diplomat from the British High Commission has been allowed to cross into rebel-held territory to check on Miss Hutchins. “There may be a war going on but she’s probably best off where she is,” said one diplomat. “It seems her orphans are giving her the loving care she needs.”. Re H (minors). Court of Appeal (Lady Justice Butler-Sloss, Sir Ralph Gibson).
2 February 1995.A court had jurisdiction in family proceedings to make a “prohibited steps” order against a non-party.The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by the guardian ad litem representing six children, supported by the local authority and the children’s mother, against the decision of Judge Charlesworth, sitting in Leeds County Court on 21 March 1994, not to make a prohibited steps order under section 8(2) of the Children Act 1989 against Mr J.

The appeal court varied the order to include a prohibited steps order against Mr J, not to have contact with the middle four children, aged 15, 13, 9 and 7.Paul Isaacs (Ford & Warren, Leeds) for the appellants; Janet Haywood (Levi & Co, Leeds) for the respondent.LADY JUSTICE BUTLER-SLOSS said that in 1990 the mother had formed a relationship with Mr J, who was not the father of any of the children, and cohabited with him until 1994. The judge found that Mr J had sexually abused the youngest of the children, aged6, who was now in the care of the local authority. It was clear Mr J posed a risk to all the children.On an application by the local authority the judge made a prohibited steps order against the mother to prevent contact between the children and Mr J, but did not make such an order against Mr J.A prohibited steps order was defined in section 8 of the 1989 Act as: “an order that no step which could be taken by a parent in meeting his parental responsibility for a child, and which is of a kind specified in the order, shall be taken by any person without the consent of the court”.By section 9(5): “No court shall exercise its power to make a specific issue order or prohibited steps order (a) with a view to achieving a result which could be achieved by making a residence or contact order”.A contact order included an order that there be no contact: see Nottingham CC v P [1993] 2 FLR 134.The judge had no power to make a prohibited steps order against the mother since that would achieve the same result as a contact order requiring her not to allow contact with Mr J and could be enforced in the same way.A prohibited steps order which required Mr J neither to have nor to seek contact with the children did not contravene section 9(5). If a “no contact” order had been made against the mother, the order would be directed at her as the subject of the order, and the obligation would be on her to prevent any contact by the children with Mr J.

There could not be a “no contact order” directing Mr J not to have nor seek contact with the children. But a contact order would not in this case achieve the required result.It was said to be wrong in principle to make an order against Mr J when he was neither a party nor present in court He should have been given an opportunity to be heard. But although with hindsight it was unfortunate that Mr J had not been allowed to intervene, the judge had been entitled to refuse to join him.If a person on whom a prohibited steps order was served wished to object, he would no doubt be given the leave required by section 10(2) to make a section 8 application to vary or discharge the order. But in any event, the judge had power to circumvent that procedural difficulty by making an order under section 11(7)(d), which stated that an order under section 8 might “make such incidental, supplemental or consequential provision as the court thinks fit”.Mr J would be given leave to apply to vary the order: that was sufficient to meet the justice of the case.Paul Magrath, Barrister. Alan Sugar, chairman of the Amstrad electronics group, yesterday reported a plunge in half-time profits and said the imminent closure of the Rumbelows electrical retailing chain vindicated his comments that the market was over-saturated. Revealing a slump in taxable profits from £1.7m to £25,000, Mr Sugar said: “There are too many people chasing the same rainbow.”
Mr Sugar, traditionally one of Britain’s more outspoken businessmen, said that if there had been any light at the end of the tunnel for loss-making Rumbelows then its parent, Thorn EMI, would have persisted with it for a few years more.Thorn had “clearly seen the writing on the wall”, Mr Sugar said, adding that Kingfisher’s Comet electrical retailing chain was also “bleeding”.Despite Amstrad’s profits setback the City was pleased by the company’s revelation that it would break even at the full year for the first time in four years.The shares added 8p to 141p as brokers upgraded full-year forecasts amid hopes that the troubled personal computers to hi-fi group synonymous with the free-spending 1980s had turned the corner. Last year Amstrad made losses of £20m, and has racked up losses of £111.2m since 1992.James Heal, electronics analyst at Hoare Govett, said he expected the company to be in the black at the year-end compared with his previous forecast of a £4m loss.

Indeed, it matters little whether countries look similar at all. It doesn’t matter for monetary union that France has higher unemployment than Germany. Economic convergence requires not that countries happen to look similar fora year or two: it requires that they respond in a similar way to events as they arise for ever more; events like oil price shocks, financial liberalisation, German unification.These are the kind of things that have led countries along economic ups and downs in recent decades; and it is those ups and downs that determine whether or not you need a change in monetary policy. But if Greece likes monetary expansion (to reduce unemployment, for example) just as Germany wants monetary contraction, then you have a problem if you only have one currency to expand or contract.The wrong-headedness in the “real convergence” argument lies in the idea that meeting a number of conditions for a short period of time in itself amounts to economic convergence. If Greece and Germany always enjoy monetary expansions at the same time, they can dispense with drachmas and marks One currency will suffice. It also underlies the thinking of economists sympathetic to the Labour Party.The idea behind the notion of “real convergence” is that monetary union requires all its member countries to pursue the same kind of monetary policy at the same time.