How much impact do celebrities have on voter sentiment when they express an opinion on whether Britain should remain in the European Union?
It probably depends on the celebrity.
Former England captain David Beckham, who is one of the few English footballers to have made a decent fist of playing outside of the British Isles, has felt obliged for some reason to inform us he is in favour of Britain staying in.
Michael Gove (the surname rhymes with “move”, not “loathe”) responded to Beckham’s declaration by citing Sol Campbell, one of the few English footballers to have defected from Tottenham Hotspur football club to bitter rivals Arsenal, as being in favour of exiting the EU.
Gove said former Watford and Liverpool luminary John Barnes is also a Brexit man.
Perhaps we could dispense with the referendum and just have a football match played between Bremain Rovers and Brexiter City?
I bet it would go to penalties, and we’d all be paying them.
Sticking my neck out
It is, by all accounts, World Giraffe Day.
I am going to stick my neck out here and venture that there is no single authorised governing council that determines whether these things are “official” or not. Basically, if I want to declare today “Could not give a flying one about a third runway” day, I can, and that is clearly wrong; we need a governing body for these sorts of things, so that they can be organised as efficiently as, say, FIFA runs world football.
Or maybe not.
It’s also yoga day, and it kicked off with 12 yogis atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge, doing their thing. I wonder if they were stealing picnic baskets and wondering where their trousers had got to.
Ah. I made a bit of a boo-boo. Not those sorts of yogis, apparently…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, around 12,000 people watched the sun rise behind the Heel Stone at Stonehenge at 4.52 this morning, marking the beginning of the summer solstice.
Today is the longest day of the year, whereas last night, at times during the England/Slovakia football match, it felt like the longest night of the year.
It's the end for Iron Man at Rio Tinto
On to less frivolous matters, and the figurative defenestration of Andrew Harding, who has been axed as head of mining giant Rio Tinto PLC’s (LON:RIO) iron ore business.
Jean-Sebastien Jacques takes over as the new chief executive officer of Rio Tinto on 2 July, and prior to his official arrival a raft of senior management changes have been made.
Jacques said the restructuring was aimed at placing the groups "assets at the heart of the business to drive improved performance".
Bright futura
At the smaller end of the market, shareholders at Futura Medical PLC’s (LON:FUM) annual general meeting today are likely to be in celebratory mood as the chairman’s round-up of all the progress the company has made in the last year seems to have alerted the market to the investment appeal of the shares.
"With potential news flow from all of our pipeline projects during the remainder of the financial year, we believe that there is clear potential for value generation this year and beyond," said chairman John Clarke, and the market appears to agree, as the shares were up 13% at 24p this morning.
Chemring Group PLC (LON:CMG) are likely to be feeling less ebullient, after another profits warning from the defence specialist.
“They have just raised money with rights issue and are already warning!” noted Jamie Constable, at broker N+1 Singer.
Chaarat’s on fire!
Well, the share price (of Chaarat Gold Holdings Ltd) is up 4.3%, but never let the facts get in the way of a decent headline.
Investors are sitting up and taking notice after the company (LON:CGH) said its deadline to submit the development proposal for its gold mine in Kyrgyzstan has been extended by two years.