There are also a number of public service broadcasting obligations which ITV would much rather be without

There are also a number of public service broadcasting obligations which ITV would much rather be without. Charles Allen, the chief executive, sees it as a major part of the management challenge at ITV to get these obligations reduced. Mr Dyke’s quarrel with the Government over Hutton shouldn’t have any bearing on these matters, but is it worth taking the risk? The same thinking may lie behind the decision to rule out Sir Christopher Gent, former chief executive of Vodafone. Inspirational leader that he is, and now available for job offers, not in a month of Sundays are they going to appoint Greg Dyke, former director general of the BBC. In many respects, he would be just right for the job, but even in a business as incestuous as the “mejia”, it surely wouldn’t be regarded as acceptable for the chief executive of the industry’s biggest player to move straight into the chairmanship of his leading competitor. For what it’s worth, the short list is down to five; Sir George Russell from Granada and Sir Brian Pitman from Carlton are said to be halfway through the interviewing, with the final decision now only weeks away.One person at least can safely be ruled out.

The lack of a convincing plan B, the still unexplained sacking of the previous chief executive, and the company’s failure to name a successor to Sir Dick Evans, BAE’s old war horse of a chairman, makes the company seem all at sea.ITV chairmanJust how long can it take to find a credible chairman for ITV? The head-hunters have been at it for more than three months now, and as the newly merged Granada and Carlton Communications start trading for the first time as a single entity on the stock market, there are still no puffs of white smoke emerging from ITV’s South Bank headquarters as to who it might be. For reasons of political sensitivity, other markets are becoming progressively more difficult to sell to. By contrast the US has the triple advantage of being the world’s biggest defence spender, it is thought a trustworthy buyer of arms, and, of course, there is the special relationship.Yet it takes two to tango, and the American defence contractors, presumably deterred by BAE’s accident-prone history, just don’t seem interested. The BAE strategy has always seemed to me sound enough in principle. The UK market will not in the long term be enough to sustain a company of BAE’s size, while the European defence market remains too fragmented and subject to national control to allow BAE a reasonable foot in the door. Yesterday all such hope was dashed when his successor, Harry Stonecipher, called out of retirement to restore Boeing’s reputation after a series of scandals, said he had absolutely no interest in buying BAE.

The company was too vertically integrated, he said on a trip to London, and why would Boeing be interested in buying a company that made submarines alongside aircraft? You can see his point.It’s hard to know what Mr Stonecipher’s comments might mean for BAE, but coming soon after the high-profile resignation of one of its non-executive directors over the company’s obsession with forging a transatlantic deal, it doesn’t look good. General Dynamics ruled out such a marriage some while back, but as long as Phil Condit remained at the helm of Boeing, the idea continued to look at least remotely possible. By changing the wording from interest rates remaining on hold for “a considerable time” to being “patient” on rates, the Fed has increased its flexibility to respond to events, but it hasn’t changed its stance.At sea with BAEBAE Systems once believed a transatlantic merger with one of the big American defence players would be its salvation. Japan shows no signs of abandoning its zero interest rate policy, the outlook for eurozone rates is if anything down, and there is no chance of an interest rate rise in the US anytime soon. Don’t read too much into the subtle change of wording used by the Federal Reserve when the Open Markets Committee met last week. Elsewhere in the world, the outlook for rates looks benign, almost incredibly so.

That means the economy must rely on domestic demand and investment to reach the Chancellor’s above- trend projection, and that in turn would imply some overheating. Interest rates will be on the rise again by the end of this week. Of that there is no doubt, yet the question mortgage holders really want answered is how far they’ll rise before they stop. If the Chancellor is right in his forecast of 3 to 3.5 per cent growth this year, then it is easily possible to imagine the base rate rising to 5 per cent or possibly even higher by the end of this year. The growth outlook in Asia and America looks good, but it still looks grim in Europe, our main trading partner.