Their skills are different.”MBA graduates such as William Hague and businessmen such as former Labour minister Geoffrey Robinson can both testify to that management experience does not guarantee success at Westminster. When it comes to understanding why UK productivity is low or organisations miss their targets, Dr Keep believes politicians could learn as much from their own history as from the management text books: “Harold Macmillan’s observation that events get in the way of strategy are still worth listening to.”Choosing an MBA* Don’t just rely on rankings and other formal criteria Investigate a school’s reputation with alumni and employers. The marketability of your MBA may be the most important factor if you’re looking for career leverage.* Accreditation isn’t everything, but think very hard before you consider a non-accredited school. In rare cases it might be the right destination, but as with all things, it’s caveat emptor.* Don’t rely on a school’s promotional material. Its purpose is to convince you that this course is the best on offer.* There is no substitute for actually visiting a school.

Talk to as many staff and students as possible to get a feel for the atmosphere and ethos, and sit in on a class if you can.* Look carefully at the application criteria. Good schools will insist on excellent qualifications and substantial work experience. The quality of the cohort is one of the most important factors in a successful MBA course.* If you’re not happy when you arrive, say so as soon as possible. Good schools will respond promptly and fully to your concerns.* If the school you’re interested in is not accredited, it is not unreasonable to ask why There may be a reason that will offset your reservations.. Once the height of middle-class housewife chic, the cosy get-togethers over coffee and cakes have followed the hostess trolley and other symbols of the post-war consumer boom into oblivion

The parties are over for Tupperware. Although the company admitted UK sales were poor, it declined to give details and said sales across Europe had increased.A spokeswoman said “times were changing”. The company was reviewing its selling techniques but while the parties in their current form would stop, some kind of party sales system might return in the future, she said.

Sales would continue through stalls in shopping centres and other outlets and Tupperware would still not be available over the counter.The parties will continue in the United States, where Earl Tupper, an amateur inventor from New Hampshire, created Tupperware in the 1940s.A religious, conservative man, Tupper envisaged post-war America being transformed by “Tupperisation” as thrifty housewives saved money by storing and serving food using his containers, writes Alison J Clarke, author of the definitive Tupperware – the promise of plastic in 1950s America, published in 2001.His other inventions, including underwater mirrors and a method for removing the appendix through the rectum without an operation, were less successful. But Tupperware took off and, by 1956, it was a multimillion-dollar business, making millionaires out of housewives profiting from the consumer boom. The corpor-ation is now valued at about $1bn and a Tupperware party is said to begin somewhere in the world every 2.2 seconds.Ms Clarke, a senior tutor in design history at the Royal College of Art, said the company was advised against beginning parties in the UK because the British were seen to be too private about their homes. “But after a few renegade British Tupperites began their own parties it blossomed and attained a social cachet among the middle classes. It was an aspirational thing.”The taste for the restrained atmosphere of a Tupperware party, at which alcohol is banned, has been replaced by a surge of interest in Ann Summers parties. And for those who still want to buy and sell Tupperware, they can do so just as easily over the internet.”Tupperware is a fascinating phenomenon,” Ms Clarke said.

“Although they do have better seals than many food containers and very rigorous testing system, they are just plastic boxes. It’s the aesthetic ritual that goes with them that gives the added value.”. A disaster was narrowly avoided when thousands of passengers were trapped for more than an hour on Tube trains in stifling conditions, a leaked report reveals. Evacuation was delayed because of a breakdown in the chain of command.The internal report revealed a catalogue of errors and found that if conditions had been “very slightly different”, the consequences “could have been disastrous”. It is understood the document’s authors believed there could have been fatalities if the passengers had been made to stay on the trains for much longer.Mike Strzelecki, London Underground’s director of safety, conceded that mistakes had been made when three overcrowded Victoria line trains were stopped in a tunnel near Highbury & Islington station in north London.Mr Strzelecki claimed there had been no attempt to keep the report private. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is important to look at incidents of this nature very carefully indeed and make sure that the lessons are learnt. And we are learning those lessons.”Mistakes were made, and it is learning from those mistakes that is important.”Duty managers and controllers were being trained to new standards, he said.