Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Blaming Sir Clive doesn't help Rentokil with Sir Gerry, but things seem to be looking up

It must all be very frustrating, for Mr Flynn would plainly give it to Sir Gerry with both barrels given the chance. What he did manage to demonstrate, however, was that there is still a great business left in Rentokil somewhere which properly reinvigorated and managed can eventually be made to pay rich dividends.

The present state of the business is blamed squarely on Rentokil's former chairman, Sir Clive Thompson, whom Mr Flynn accuses of trashing the business in his desperation to meet his own, self-imposed, earnings targets by pushing prices to unsustainable levels and relentlessly cutting costs to the detriment of standards of service. Years after the event, Mr Flynn claims, the BET acquisition has still to be properly integrated into the group, to the extent that until very recently it sometimes found itself in direct competition with other group companies for new contracts.

Yet Mr Flynn's damning indictment of the latter stages of the Thompson reign won't of itself be enough to save him from Sir Gerry. For that he's got to promise and deliver results. That the turnaround would be a long hard slog was not what shareholders wanted to hear.

Even so, they'd have to be desperate to accept the Robinson proposal as so far billed. For the privilege of Sir Gerry's powers of alchemy, they might have to give him anything up to 10 per cent of the company. With the rise of private equity, there's a greater tolerance of such levels of value transfer than there used to be, but only when the company is seen to be beyond fixing. After yesterday's presentation, shareholders can feel a little more confident. This is a company already on the turn, which is why Sir Gerry is so keen to have it.

Jury out on Alan Greenspan's legacy

The elite of world central banking and monetary expertise gathers at Jackson Hole in the American Rockies this weekend for a festival of whitewater rafting, hiking, partying and yes, that too - state of the art thinking from around the globe on how best to manage interest rate policy.

This annual event holds a special significance this year, for it is, presumably, Alan Greenspan's last as chairman of the US Federal Reserve. I say presumably, because it is not altogether impossible that he'll be asked to stay on for a sixth term.

Yet nobody seriously expects it and already the tributes are cascading off the presses. The record speaks for itself. Throughout his time at the Fed, inflation has been kept low, yet growth has charged ahead in a manner more associated with one of the tiger economies of the Far East than the maturer nations of the OECD. True, there were two recessions, but both of them were shallow by past standards, and on the whole, the Fed's policy response to the various economic and financial crises that have been thrown at it were generally flawless.

Mr Greenspan didn't get everything right by any means. He warned of irrational exuberance in equity markets but did nothing to check them, and indeed by the time the bubble reached its zenith, he seemed wholly to have bought the case for the crazy valuations that then ruled supreme.

He cut interest rates too far in response to the emerging market crises of the late 1990s, helping to fuel the latter stages of the bubble, and he failed to tighten quickly enough as the boom took hold. Yet he acted boldly and decisively in response to the terrorist atrocities of 11 September. The incredibly lax monetary conditions allowed since then have been largely vindicated.

Mr Greenspan's biggest regret as he takes his last bow will be that he's leaving the helm with the experiment only half complete. Of course it is always possible to say that about economic management. The efficacy of policy can't properly be judged until years after the event. Yet Mr Greenspan would be the first to admit that he's been in uncharted waters by keeping interest rates so low for so long and he'd have liked to be at the wheel long enough to see landfall.

Unfortunately, it's not yet at all clear that he's produced the sought after soft landing. By helping to keep consumption high, he's underpinned American growth, yet the low interest rates he's pursued have only been possible courtesy of price deflation coming out of the Far East. It has also resulted in an horrendous trade deficit and possibly unsustainable levels of domestic and public sector debt. Eventually, these imbalances must correct. Whether that happens slowly and painlessly, or quickly and catastrophically, will be one of the main topics of conversation at Jackson Hole this weekend. The jury is still very much out on Mr Greenspan's reign. His legacy is not yet secure.

Sipps, pensions and second homes

As if the UK housing market really needed a shot in the arm after nearly fifteen years of steeply rising prices, the Government finds itself accused of giving tax breaks on second homes that could exacerbate the shortage of affordable housing in the countryside. What's more, the charge comes from the Affordable Rural Housing Commission, the organisation set up by the Government to address the whole issue of locals being priced out of the market by rich townies.

What on earth is going on here? The possibility of tax breaks on second homes is an unintentional side effect of measures, most of them broadly welcome, to simplify the rules governing pension saving. These have long been a minefield of complexity which many have seen as in themselves a good enough reason for not taking out a pension. One of those simplifications was to abolish the restrictions on what a pension can be invested in, allowing the money to be ploughed into residential property for the first time.

Most of those who take advantage of the concession will do so through the buy-to-let market, yet theoretically the rules would also allow for the use of pension money for the purchase of second homes. However, in practice few seem destined to take advantage of them. Detailed tax rules to govern so-called Self Invested Personal Pensions (Sipps) have yet to be published, but what we do know is that personal use of a property purchased through a pension pot would either result in loss of the tax break or would be taxed as a benefit in kind.

Most pension providers will find this too administratively complicated and costly to want to deal with. Furthermore, only those with very large pension pots would find it feasible at all, and even for them, the financial gain may be too marginal to be worth the bother.

All the same, the Rural Housing Commission raises an interesting point. The curiosity of the pension changes, given that they have been enacted by a Labour Government, is that they only really benefit the already affluent, providing few additional incentives for poorer income groups to save. From next April it will be possible to save your entire gross income into a pension up to a maximum of £215,000 a year. The rules allow 25 per cent of these monies eventually to be taken as a tax free lump sum. The tax benefits are obvious, yet only the already well off will be in a position to take advantage of them.

Still, let's not tempt fate. The Chancellor has more than once toyed with the idea of abolishing higher rate tax relief on pensions altogether. This would only further discourage saving for a pension. Instead he should provide the same level of tax incentive to lower income groups as those enjoyed by high rate tax payers, a policy taken on board by the Tories at the last election. Don't hold your breath.

j.warner@independent.co.uk