Business Diary: March 13

Mr Brandreth, who was a Government Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s government, was the guest speaker at the Leeds, York & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce annual dinner in York last week.

He told the audience: “And because you are the member of Parliament, you cannot just buy one little ticket, you have to buy a whole strip, preferably a strip of every colour. Well the cost of this got me down.”

But one day, he said, he was sitting in the tea room of the House of Commons, when the then Prime Minister, John Major, sat down next to him.

Mr Brandreth explained: “He said: ‘you are looking very worried, what’s worrying you?’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what’s worrying me, it’s the raffles’.”

Mr Brandreth continued: “He said, ‘you do not need to buy raffle tickets at every function you attend’. I said, ‘I do’. He said, ‘you don’t’. And there and then, in the tea room of the House of Commons... the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland fished into his top, left-hand jacket pocket, and there were one, two, three, four, five strips of different coloured tickets.

“He said, ‘Gyles, as you arrive at any function, all you do as you walk through the front door, you pull out your raffle tickets on display, and they think, oh, that nice Mr Major, that nice Mr Brandreth, he’s already bought his raffle tickets’.”

“John Major turned to me, and I promise you this is true, and said,’ I bought these tickets in 1982’,” said Mr Brandreth.

Rock rivalry

After 2,000 members of staff at Morrisons’ Bradford headquarters enjoyed live performances by Paul Heaton of the Beautiful South and The Housemartins and Bruce Foxton of The Jam on Friday morning, wags pointed out that rival Asda has been doing the same thing for “at least ten years”.

Recent performers at Asda’s HQ in Leeds include Gareth Gates, Jamie Cullum, One Direction, Peter Andre and Chipmunk. “Morrisons are so catching up,” said a source.

“We normally get them on the way up, rather than the way down.”

Still, Asda has yet to unveil plans for a live music and food festival this summer, unlike Morrisons with MFEST.

Women’s work

For many years, engineering was regarded as an all-male occupation which revolved around rags and spanners. Times, Diary is pleased to report, are changing. The Humberside Engineering Training Association – HETA for short – is hosting an open evening to encourage more female applicants through an apprenticeship scheme.

The open evening is taking place on Wednesday, March 21, at HETA in Sutton Fields, Hull from 5pm.

A HETA spokesman stressed that modern engineering is based around the skills of people who are good at fault finding and problem solving.

They are just the sort of people who are suited to the wind energy industry and the trades that companies like Siemens and its suppliers will be highlighting.

HETA marketing and communications manager James McIntosh said: “Here at HETA we are the region’s leading engineering training provider.

“We are hoping the open evening will give local female students the chance to come and have a real look at engineering.”

Going for gold

As the London 2012 Olympics get closer, it’s not just athletes who are practising for the events.

Staff at Grant Thornton in Leeds tried their hand at fencing as part of an initiative to encourage the firm’s employees to try new sports.

The team visited The Edge Sports Hall at Leeds University for a two-hour introduction to foil fencing session, led by the university’s fencing club.

The Leeds office has also organised coaching sessions in judo, Olympic boxing, running and archery over the coming weeks as part of Grant Thornton’s 2012 Gold Challenge, a fundraising scheme supported by the firm throughout the Olympic year.

Janette Hulme, head of corporate responsibility, said: “2012 Gold Challenge is a fantastic opportunity for staff to try new and more unusual sports which they might not otherwise have access to, as well as pushing personal boundaries, improving health and fitness and having fun.”