In case you missed it….

I know precisely nothing about Banks’ business dealings, don’t even know how he made his pot. But meeting people to discuss whether to do a deal with them is how he will now be spending his business life. Actually running a business isn’t what he does any more. Trying to work out which business to do next – and more importantly, which not to – is what he does do.

We can translate this into Guardian/Observer terms if we wish. Cadwallader and her work will be managed by whoever it is that edits the Observer these days. There’s also a managing director there who manages things like print runs, distribution and so on – that’s how newspapers work, two management sets, one for content, the other for practical stuff. Up at the parent company level there’s GMG. The CEO of which doesn’t spend any time at all “managing” the newspapers. Their job (umm, used to be the bird who went off to run Easyjet I think?) is to think through which deals the group should be doing. Which radio stations/car magazines should the group buy via offshore tax havens, which should it sell and when?

At a certain level business is about what do we do next, what do we stop doing? And meeting all the chancers and grifters out there to find those few one wishes to consummate a cash relationship with.

Banks talked with Russians? That’s the job, as with Eric and Donald Jr.