Have a heart for Mr Hart

Martyn Hart, chair of the National Outsourcing Association (NOA), must rue the day he added his voice to the shouting match over CSC's UK job cuts. First, he appeared to suggest that he thought the layoffs were a good thing. Several days later - after the fuss had died down - Hart said that, no, he didn't think the cuts were a good thing after all: that was outrageous media spin.

Hart should have left it there and patted his PR company on the head for some swift - well, maybe not swift - damage limitation. But not content with blowing one foot off with a blunderbuss, Hart then took aim at the other. What he meant to say, he added, was that CSC's most talented people would be the first to leave if voluntary redundancies were on the table, and so compulsory layoffs were much better.

Well done, Mr Hart! A bomb defused, and then expertly primed once again. Impressive.