Philip Hammond’s speech at the CBI’s annual dinner this week was widely circulated in advance, but when the chancellor got to his feet he opened with an unscripted sally to CBI president John Allan about the event being held at The Brewery on Chiswell Street: “If the CBI is trying to make a cheap point by literally organising your annual piss-up in a brewery, I am going to pretend I haven’t noticed it.”Have you been here before? Britain’s grocers appear to lack little inspiration when it comes to deciding where to entertain the nation’s finest retail journalists. On Tuesday evening Tesco chose the Violin Factory in London’s Waterloo to wine and dine hacks — the week after Asda had used the same venue to entertain…

Source: The Times May 22, 2019 23:02 UTC