241 Pizza

But overall trading worsened in the second quarter to minus 1.6 per cent and the company is drifting away from its previously stated target of raising sales by up to 2 per cent. Mr Baker’s cause was not helped by the fact that bomb threats, cricket excitement and stultifying weather kept shoppers off Central London streets in the summer. The value of sales in dispensing, meanwhile, was depressed by changes in NHS-set tariffs lying beyond Mr Baker’s control.

Things are truly awful at Boots opticians, however. Specsavers, complete with its catchy adline, has wrought damage by cutting its prices. But Boots’ optical operation has seen heightened competition on all sides, including from the ubiquitous supermarkets. Boots has also restructured working practices in its optical arm, causing more sales disruption.

That said, it is invariably best to under-promise and then over-deliver. Unfortunately for Richard Baker, the market is coming to the conclusion that he over-promised two years ago when he became chief executive of Boots, and is now under-delivering.

Boots, like Marks & Spencer, has a giant retailing brand and a monster reputation to go with it. Mr Baker — in common with Stuart Rose, his opposite number at M&S — knows he must do more than hope that Boots’ retail heritage will spur recovery. Although he deserves some plaudits for his performance, investors may start wondering whether the company can avoid a dividend cut. Worrying whispers about the possible “rebasing” of the dividend may get louder.

Stop press

IT IS not often that Ken Livingstone and Lord Heseltine are in agreement, but the Office of Fair Trading has brought the two together. They are united by opposition to the OFT’s proposal to break up the magazine distribution system, which requires distributors to stock both tiny corner shops and supermarkets with glossies.

On Wednesday, the OFT had been expected to issue its final opinion, but it has not appeared. Until now, the watchdog has said that existing system monopoly distribution is fine for newspapers, but not for magazines because a magazine is not deemed time-sensitive.

Yet, Lord Heseltine, the owner of Haymarket, a publisher, cannot see why a Sunday newspaper is more time-sensitive than a weekly magazine. Mr Livingstone, meanwhile, is worried about the impact on the diversity of publications.

OFT case officials have regarded this as special pleading so far, and refused to budge. So Heseltine and Livingstone have lobbied John Vickers, the OFT’s chairman, directly. Will he intervene to overrule the case officials? The delay in issuing the final opinion suggests a rewrite of sorts is going on.

• IN A world of shifting sands, actuaries lived in an oasis of certainty. But no longer. Life expectancy has risen so fast in recent years that these masters of mathematical projection, who traditionally make auditors look like careless dilettantes, have acknowledged that mortality rates are too slippery to predict. A symbolic throwing up of hands may kill the traditional annuity, at least for anyone under 75. But the admission of ignorance is also refreshing since no one can really know what the future holds, and sound planning will provide for unexpected, as well as expected, events.

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