I WAS interested to see last week that Baroness Kingsmill, former deputy chairman of the competition watchdog, had taken a breather from the model health inquiry, which is trying to establish what’s “too thin” in fashion, to highlight a different danger.

The Labour peer, who also sits on the board of British Airways, penned a strongly worded article in the Financial Times calling for an immediate inquiry by British competition authorities into Google, the internet giant.

Kingsmill said that Google’s acquisition of the online advertising firm DoubleClick meant that consumers “now lack a meaningful choice” in the search market. The search sector, she fumed, was “not only of growing strategic importance but also one that is dangerously unbalanced”.

But it turns out that there could be another reason why Kingsmill, a former lawyer, may have a reasonable amount of savvy when it comes to antitrust issues and international technology giants.

According to the latest register of Lords’ interests Kingsmill has declared that she is an occasional consultant to Microsoft with an American corporate communications firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.

There’s certainly no love lost between Microsoft and Google. The two are locked in a mano-a-mano power struggle to control the technosphere.

I’m sure this is simply a rather extraordinary coincidence.

Kingsmill could not be reached for comment.

- MODESTY is rarely a quality associated with John Studzinski – he threw a party for himself and 100 pals at Salzburg’s Leopoldskron Palace last year – but his recent crowing over the success of his M&A division at Blackstone has raised some eyebrows. Sure, Studz is advising the China Development Bank (CDB) on its acquisition of a £6.6 billion stake in Barclays. But I’m told that the appointment wasn’t quite as inevitable as he implied. Instead, his old pal John Varley, chief executive of Barclays, is said to have had a hand – so much so that when Studz turned up to a meeting with CDB, the Chinese asked why. Apparently they hadn’t heard Blackstone even had an advisory business. Ouch.

- SIR LAWRIE BARRATT, the developer known as Mrs Thatcher’s favour-ite housebuilder, has spent the past 50 years putting houses in every nook and cranny of Britain. Now I hear of plans to build houses in the town where he lives – Corbridge in Northumberland, 20 miles west of Newcastle – and he’s not so keen.

The area has been earmarked for rapid building with more than 300 proposals for new developments put forward by builders and landowners.

A number have targeted a 38-acre site in Corbridge, including the Beau-front estate, Tynedale council, Smiths Gore and George Wimpey. Everyone – except Barratt Homes. Fancy that.

THERE has been loads of work to ensure rain does not halt play at the Chinawhite party today at the Cartier international polo tournament in Windsor.

The organisers have even raised the floor by four inches so any water that seeps in is not lapping round the ankles of the expected 4,000 guests, who are likely to include Jemima Khan and Ruby Stewart, Rod’s daughter. Some of those with tickets are more used to sports where rain affects play than others – tennis-playing brothers Andy and Jamie Murray are among those due at the event, which will feature a high-wire “aerial polo” display, too. You cannot be serious.

Roll up for a runway shuffle

WHISPERS reach me of a secret trade being plotted at Heathrow.

Airlines are desperate for access to the airport’s runways but, since all the slots are full, the only way is to try to buy them off rivals. It’s all kept under wraps because some in the European commission think the trade is illegal.

Still, a source at Heathrow tells me that last week there were signs of a three-way transaction involving Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin, Sir Michael Bishop’s BMI British Midland, and Etihad, the Gulf airline (which is run by James Hogan, formerly chief executive at BMI). All three have put in applications to airport authorities that would indicate they are trading slots, but it is not clear who is moving what to whom.

My man’s best guess is that BMI is selling to Etihad, with Virgin acting as a middleman, but he won’t swear to it. Virgin and BMI are not forthcoming. “I don’t know if there is anything going on, and if I did, we certainly wouldn’t discuss it in the press,” sniffs a BMI spokesman.

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