KEY POINTS:
The famed silver tongue of Britain's Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson, deserted him on a business trip to New York when he responded with a four-letter tirade against one of America's most senior entrepreneurs, the Starbucks boss Howard Schultz.
The chief executive spoke of his corporation's recent struggles in a television interview.
"The concern for us is Western Europe and specifically the UK," he said. "The UK is in a spiral."
Mandelson resorted to an uncharacteristic Anglo-Saxon turn of phrase at a cocktail party in New York:
"Why should I have that guy running down the country? Who the f*** is he?"
Lord Mandelson added a withering comment on Starbucks' assessment of the UK economy, adding: "How the hell are they doing?"
Starbucks plans to close 900 of its 16,000 outlets worldwide.
In a public interview on the CNBC TV station, he used less fragrant language but was no less damning in his comments: "The UK is not spiralling, although I have noticed that Starbucks is in a great deal of trouble. But that may be because of their over-exposure given the state of the market. So please do not project Starbucks on to the UK economy as a whole."
Starbucks later said that Schultz had not intended to do down Britain, which is its third biggest market.
- INDEPENDENT
