The BBC is ready to give viewers a wonderful package of services, in addition to the wares on view on BBC1 and BBC2. A 24-hour news service, programme notes, biographies of our favourite stars - all this, and wide- screen TV and CD-quality sound too. Bass can also probably kiss goodbye to any hope of taking over Carlsberg Tetley. But whether rationalising mergers such as that of Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance also fall foul of the return to old values remains to be seen. A couple of big City deals are said to be virtually ready to go. Moreover, Mr Lang needs to make some sort of sense out of the policy decisions made on electricity bids.

Now that we finally know what Mr Lang's priorities are (no sarcasm intended), all becomes clear. He blocked National Power and PowerGen from bidding for regional electricity companies because, although these takeovers might have created powerful new national champions in the electricity industry, they might also have damaged nascent competition in the domestic electricity market. Less clear is why he should have blocked the American bid for National Power, which by breaking the company up promised to create more competition. But then, er, that would not have gone down well with the right wing little Englanders either, would it? Consistency, it seems, won't be one of the new approach's strong points.Has Mr Lang signalled the end of the merger boom? Certainly it is hard to see how some recent deals, such as Scottish & Newcastle's acquisition of Courage or the GEC bid for VSEL, could have been allowed under the new guidelines. More likely this is an on- the-hoof response to the pressures of right-wing Tory backbenchers, who increasingly seem to set the agenda for government policy these days.