His editorial direction is unlikely to include any of the political campaigning for which Morgan will

His editorial direction is unlikely to include any of the political campaigning for which Morgan will probably be remembered. Wallace is, if you like, Morgan Lite – Piers without the element of danger that surrounded him.Far from needling the Government and antagonising Cherie Blair, Wallace will be concentrating on froth, fun and, no doubt, football.. This gave Wallace experience on the third of the group’s national titles – he worked for me at The People when I edited it more than a decade ago.Having previously reported for the Daily Mail and The Sun , he has the popular journalistic background necessary if he is to halt the Daily Mirror ’s savage decline in sales. To a certain extent, he has Morgan to thank for his rise to the top.

After a successful working relationship with Morgan that saw them create the now much-mimicked 3am Girls, Wallace was dispatched to New York for a 10-month stint before returning to oversee the paper’s news operation.Tina Weaver took him with her as her deputy when given command of the Sunday Mirror. But Phil Hall, a former editor of the News of the World now running Mirror Group’s magazine unit, and Tina Weaver, one-time deputy to Piers Morgan and Wallace’s boss at the Sunday Mirror , were believed to be way out in front.At 43, Wallace has seen off the favourites to step into the role vacated by a younger man. Sly Bailey may have taken considerable time to make up her mind, but she couldn’t have produced a bigger shock in selecting Richard Wallace as the 19th editor of the Daily Mirror had she pulled a rabbit out of a hat and given it a green eyeshade.
Wallace was the internal candidate to whom few gave credence in the Canary Wharf gossip factory once it became known that potential candidates from outside Trinity Mirror were no longer in the frame.Talking to Mirror staff this week, it became obvious that there had been no leak as to who was going to be next to sip from what might be considered the poisoned chalice of national editorships. Professor Brownlee said that was because there is hardly any gravity on the surface of Wild 2.. The scientists involved in the mission have identified two kinds of crater on the comet, one with a central rounded pit and a surrounding rough terrain, the other with a flat floor and steep sides.Two craters look like footprints, and have been named Right Foot and Left Foot. We were expecting the surface to look more like it was covered with pulverised charcoal,” Professor Brownlee said.Instead the Stardust photographs – published in the journal Science – depict a mini world scarred by a series of collisions with other space objects over many millions of years.

Unlike craters seen on Earth or the Moon, the craters on Wild 2 are virtually devoid of the powdery debris seen scattered around typical impact craters. Close-up photographs of a comet have shattered the belief that these traditional portents of doom are so-called “dirty snowballs” composed of dust and ice. The decision to demerge rather than sell is mail business was also a blow, but there is still scope for share buybacks, improvements in profitability and the valuation benefits of being a focused company rather than the conglomerate of old Hold.. Disappointment was compounded by the suggestion Hays may have to write off a £45m loan.This remains an expensive play on the UK recruitment market which, because of its generalist nature, operating across many sectors, is likely to see less upside than competitors operating in the more bombed out markets of financial and IT recruitment. A trading update yesterday dented that case, and sent Hays shares down 4 per cent.Despite a healthier than expected 10-11 per cent rise in fee income this year so far (the growth rate had been half that in February), analysts were guided not to raise their profit forecasts – suggesting quite a lot is getting eaten up in higher administrative charges.

The company has struggled on the stock market, finding itself with a rag-bag of technologies and consultancy revenues that it has had difficulty explaining to investors. Worse, the work it did for the nuclear industry – helping decommission plants, mainly – has proved unprofitable and had to be sold off or shut down.It makes a lot more sense these days It has two main divisions. First, environmental, which works mainly for the Government, giving advice on environmental policy and running “green” campaigns aimed at encouraging businesses to be more energy efficient. Second, rail, which investigates accidents, sells design services and software systems, and has invented gadgets for stopping leaves on the line from disrupting the running of trains.The chaotic running of the rail industry has meant sales have been flat in this division, and one has to be sceptical of hopes for a quick upturn, but environmental services are growing strongly and there is plenty of upside from a batteries division selling mobile power packs to the military. Buy.Hays still worth holding despite the setbacksThe buy case for Hays shares is that, because the recruitment business bears the high fixed costs of its chain of high street offices, any extra fees it generates as the UK employment market improves ought to feed swiftly through to profits. One area where the problem is very apparent is in the key arena of mortgage lending.In a trading statement yesterday, A&L revealed that it had notched up a substantial 4.5 per cent of the new lending market – more than double its slice of the market last year. However, it paid the price in its mortgage margins, which fell from 1.29 per cent in its fourth quarter last year to just 1.15 per cent in the first three months of this year.That is partly because A&L immediately writes off any up-front discounts it makes to new customers – unlike some rivals, which amortise it over the period of the loan.