Now that the dust has begun to settle on Albert Manifold’s ousting as BP chairman, the mutual recriminations between the company and its erstwhile leader have begun to look even more puerile. Were it not for BP’s importance to Britain, their tit-for-tat blame game might rank as vaguely amusing.

Manifold’s statement painting himself as a virtuous cost-cutter looked poorly judged in the light of my revelation about his baker’s dozen of stays in a five-star hotel at the company’s expense. In many other respects, though, his 773-word assessment of BP’s conduct will have been jarring in the extreme. Insiders say there was resistance not only to Manifold as the messenger, but also the message itself. BP will not survive long-term as an independent company if that continues to be the case.

I’m not in the camp, though, which says that Dame Amanda Blanc, the senior independent director responsible for recruiting Manifold, should fall on her sword. BP needs a robust leadership team capable of shaking it out of a corporate malaise which has persisted for many years.

Costs do need to be cut; execution does need to be faster. Blanc’s assessment of the chairman’s remit was entirely correct – she, and the rest of the board, simply appear to have made a mistake about the identity of the individual, but letting her go too would risk compounding, rather than resolving, BP’s boardroom dilemma.

Nevertheless, as BP looks for a replacement for Egon Zehnder International, I think I can save the company its headhunter’s fee, as there’s an obvious choice to fill the vacancy.

Step forward, Rupert Soames, whose capacity for calm leadership was ably demonstrated when he saved the CBI from collapse. Granted, the chairmanship of Smith & Nephew (market cap circa £10bn) is not quite the same as that of BP, but Soames is well-regarded and many investors would back him for the job.

Until it recruits a genuine heavyweight as chairman who is adept at striking a balance between being sufficiently hands-on to reassure shareholders and divining the meaning of the term ‘non-executive’, plugging its credibility gap will remain trickier for BP than dealing with an abandoned well.

Haven’t we been here before? Tales about a takeover of Boots get doled out almost as frequently as prescriptions at the high street chain’s pharmacies.

In the last three years, prospective buyers from the Indian sub-continent, US and Britain (the latter two financial rather than strategic) have shown an interest without tabling sufficiently convincing offers to Boots’ parent company.

Now, amid preparations for a £7bn stock market listing, the private equity owner of its parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), is also anticipating a wave of fresh offers from bidders in Canada and Australia.

This time, a sale looks a likelier bet than a stock market return. Boots has been buoyed by the bonanza created by GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro, and its broader performance has also recovered in recent years from its nadir of stuttering like-for-like sales and question marks over its long-term future.

Already, overseas buyers are circling. Sycamore Partners, the buyout firm which took WBA private last year (with the irrepressible Stefano Pessina and partner Ornella Barra remaining as very significant minority shareholders), would clearly prefer a clean exit from Boots in the form of an outright sale than the staggered process of a gradual selldown through an IPO.

Where this would leave Alex Baldock, who has resigned as chief executive of Currys to take the vacant CEO post at Boots, is slightly unclear. He would be a logical choice for an overseas buyer to run the business after an acquisition. At the same time, he is the pick of WBA’s board and its current owners, who may not be in charge for much longer. One to watch.

Emergency! Government plans to shrink the number of police forces in England, outlined in a white paper earlier this year, won’t be uppermost in many City AM readers’ minds. They have, though, begun drawing close scrutiny among City policymakers.

According to well-placed sources, the City of London Corporation plans to oppose any move to scrap or merge the Square Mile’s policing operation as part of Labour’s overhaul, arguing that operational independence is essential in an area with such a distinctive, and disproportionate, economic significance.

Its argument seems well-founded, particularly because the City of London Police places, relatively speaking, a modest strain on taxpayer funding resources.

This week, a spokesperson for the Corporation told me: “The City of London Police plays a vital role in keeping the Square Mile safe.

“The City powers the UK economy, supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, and generates £109bn in output.
“Market confidence and investment, depends on security delivered by an independent force.

“We support the government’s ambition to deliver more effective, efficient and accountable policing, and we are obviously engaging with City businesses to bring them up to speed, reflect their priorities and understand the potential impacts on the City.”

All sensible stuff – but I fear the Corporation’s arguments will end up falling on deaf ears in Whitehall when Britain’s policing map is redrawn.