We?re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business of the Day.

In today's supercharged, hypercompetitive environment, it can be a full-time job just to keep your head above water and manage your time and calendar wisely. To help with this, Doodle, an online scheduling application, has compiled a list of 10 tips and tricks that can decrease the amount of time that you?ll spend on coordinating meetings and managing your schedule.

We?re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business of the Day.

We?re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business of the Day.

We?re highlighting small businesses from around the country as nominated by you, our readers. If your favorite small business is using Twitter to communicate with customers, let us know about it @fbsmallbiz with the hashtag #mysbc, and it may be featured as an upcoming Small Business of the Day.

The days of aspiring to be a corporate executive seem to be over. Of the 1,075 people responding to Intelligent Office?s Work IQ survey, not a single one expressed any desire of spending his or her career as an office leader. Nearly 65 percent said they preferred to be an entrepreneur or independent worker instead.

His condemnation of existing arrangements is the most searing criticism from the business establishment since Richard Lambert, then director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, two years ago warned bosses risked being viewed as "aliens [living in] a different galaxy from the rest of the community" because of the ever widening gulf between shopfloor and boardroom wages.

Darrington, who was born in Sussex but has lived much of his life in Jesmond, Newcastle, is seeking to build a broad base of support for a campaign to reign in executive pay. He is already supported by the High Pay Centre and corporate governance advisory group Pirc, but is keen to get public backing from fund managers and, ultimately, executives themselves.

In 2007, as Greggs chief executive, Darrington received pay, benefits and bonus of £901,000 and, a year later, retired having built up a pension pot of more than £2m. His pay was modest compared with peers. Since the group joined the stock market in 1984 it has grown steadily, becoming a FTSE 250 stock, and proving one of the few high street success stories during the recession. It continues to open stores, creating jobs, while many of its peers rapidly contract or go to the wall.

Unlike many politicians who have joined the debate on executive pay recently, Darrington is also happy to cite specific examples of what he sees as unacceptable excess. He attacked the decision this month by Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond to trim back investment banker pay by a third. "If profits are down [nearly] 40%, bonuses should be nil," he said yesterday at a governance conference organised by Pirc.

Also criticised were past pay arrangements for former Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose and former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy. Darrington suggested that during Leahy's final years Tesco's share performance had been "good but not brilliant ? and look what happened since". Some £5bn was wiped off the value of the group last month after Leahy's successor Philip Clarke delivered a heavy profits warning and attacked the company's "long-standing business issues".

Darrington also dismissed fears that companies taking a hard line on executive pay risked losing vital business leaders to rivals. It would be healthy to cut back pay to such a level that executives left, he said, as most companies had a rich pool of talent which could step up to fill any roles left vacant. "If you don't start to lose people, we have not gone far enough," he claimed, though he accepted a mass exodus might indicate inappropriately low levels of pay.

The increasing complexity of pay arrangements is another bugbear for Darrington. He said multiple bonus arrangements, purporting to be linked to performance, were "guilty of obfuscation".

Reflecting on the many cases of executives received big payouts despite manifestly poor performance, he said the complexity of remuneration arrangements meant shareholders "do not know what is going on until it is too late".

Congratulations to John Harris on his excellent article about A4e and the perils of outsourcing (Nice work if you can get it, G2, 22 February). As he points out, A4e and others act like an arm of the state but with little transparency or democratic scrutiny. It is good to see a politician of the status of Margaret Hodge admitting policy mistakes and recognising that "private providers often don't provide well". Should a contract end and the work need to be taken back in-house, there are further complications. The expertise has often been lost by the local authority or government department. They then have to reinvent the wheel at great cost to discharge their responsibilities.
Tony Clewes
Walsall, West Midlands

? I work for a locally recognised, small, specialist welfare-to-work provider ? typical of the sort that Iain Duncan Smith insists the prime providers of the now infamous Work Programme should be engaging with. We know from previous articles that, contrary to their assurances during the tendering process, prime providers are not engaging with organisations such as us. A great many of us had and still have concerns about how prime providers have been operating, especially with the "harder to reach" claimants who would need longer-term and more expert support usually provided by specialists.

While it is unfortunate that four members of staff from one of these providers have been arrested on suspicion of skewing the figures to generate more income, I wonder whether this is the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps deeper investigations should be undertaken.
Jane Cattermole
Senior employment manager, Employment Support and Retraining Agency Ltd

? As somebody who was unemployed for 18 months, I'm glad that MPs and the public are beginning to see A4e's shortcomings. I had a short experience with them and it was awful, with no help in finding work and the only work offered unpaid in a charity shop already over-staffed with other jobseekers from A4e.

I had to borrow money to fund a training course. When I got a new job, A4e got paid by the government for helping me into work even though A4e were no help and continued to get payments for me in work. In your article it says the total payments A4e gets from each person such as me is up to £13,000. Why doesn't the government give jobseekers control of this money, and let them decide how to best use it so they can learn a new skill or fund a university course?

I only needed £1,500, so the government would have saved £11,500. The government must let jobcentres do more and stop people like Emma Harrison making millions from unemployed people.
Mark Judge
Sheffield

? On Tuesday I listened to an original recording of Asquith talking about his people's budget. He made it clear that it was only fair that those who had most should pay more tax to help those who had nothing. Buried deep down in David Laws's article (Our ambition for fairer tax, 22 February), one politician has the guts to make the same plea.

As a retired person on a reasonable occupation pension, I have, so far, been virtually unaffected by the austerity measures. I would gladly pay some extra tax if it meant that more young people could get into work, but no political party is prepared to offer me that option. Increasing VAT was a regressive measure affecting all, but income tax does, or should, reflect ability to pay and, in David Cameron's "big society", fairness has to be one of his aims or it stands even less chance of capturing the public imagination.
Maureen Panton
Malvern, Worcestershire

? David Laws, while supporting a policy which will condemn thousands more, particularly young people, to unemployment, claims the only tax change possible is to reduce tax avoidance and scale back certain reliefs. But there is a much simpler "tax change" which could yield up to £10bn: add three extra divisions to council tax rates. Income and affluence levels are closely related to the value of houses owned and any tax is unavoidable. The small number with high-value properties and limited income would simply have to move ? the fate which will apply to the large working-class families in London because of the new rules.
John Pert
Tonbridge, Kent

? Margaret Levy is no doubt convinced by her own claims about the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), and the purported features that, "by design", it was "intended" to have (Letters, 20 February). She omits to state that in 1982, prior to the development of YTS, the Conservative government had abolished the majority of the very agencies that would have been able to develop relevant youth training programmes in negotiation with and agreement by employers, trade unions and educationalists.

Those agencies, the statutory industrial training boards (ITBs), had close links with employers and the occupational fields they covered, undertaking detailed research into changes in skill requirements and developing qualifications directly linked to job requirements. They were run by boards that had employer, trade union and educationalist members. Some 55% of the UK workforce was efficiently covered by the ITBs prior to 1982, with a total staff of only about 20% of that of the bloated Manpower Services Commission, which was effectively an arm of government.

The reason for abolition of most ITBs, and disabling of the remainder, was clear: they would not have supported YTS as it was introduced, because it did not meet the skills needs of industry. If the ITBs had not been abolished, we might by now have the highly skilled, globally competitive workforce we so desperately need. Clearly, the abolition of the ITBs, espousedly to improve training and skills levels, has been an utter failure. Their reintroduction is urgently needed but, sadly, unlikely under the ideologically driven policies of the current government.
Dr Leonard Holmes
Reader in management, University of Roehampton

? Employment minister Chris Grayling is stalling for time by suggesting that the unpaid work schemes he has promoted to businesses are to be reviewed (Unpaid work scheme may be reviewed, says minister, 21 February). He is attempting to justify the unjustifiable: tens of thousands of people being forced into working for companies, including Tesco, the biggest private-sector employer in the country, which made profits of £3.8bn.

He talks of protecting small employers, but the reality is that "workfare" schemes are a multimillion pound industry. On an eight-week placement, Tesco saves £1,500 by not paying the minimum wage of just £6.08 an hour to people on placements. Many have reported that they do the same work as any other Tesco employee without pay. 

Multiply this by the 1,400 workers Tesco says it took on placements in the last four months (Tesco under pressure to withdraw from unpaid work experience schemes, 17 February) and you arrive at £2m pounds in four months ? £6m over a year. These savings on Tesco's wage bill are being subsidised by public money used to pay the subsistence benefits that keep those in forced labour fed.

The employment minister also states: "The idea of people being press-ganged to work for nothing to provide cheap labour for big firms is totally untrue." But as documents released by the Guardian show, the minister is disgracefully pushing not just the young, who face mandatory work activity for four weeks,into unpaid work, but also the disabled. In the case of those on disability benefits, there is no time limit on the period of servitude.

Referring to the plans, The Royal College of Psychiatrists has stated it would prefer the placements to be optional, suggesting that as it stands the vulnerable people they are aimed at have no choice in whether to participate.

Grayling should stop playing for time and move immediately to end the disgraceful schemes that are exploiting the most vulnerable to boost the profits of big business.
Mark Dunk, Rhia Lawrence, Alexandra Sayer, Richard Donnell
Right to Work

That is what eurozone leaders insist they did this week. Their exhausting, day-and-night efforts must be acknowledged. They have worked hard to square many circles. It is easy to criticise from the sidelines. Nonetheless, this has to be said once again: they have not succeeded yet. It is not just, as the cliche has it, that they are still kicking the can down the road. Now they are kicking a Molotov cocktail down the road.

At the moment, there is still a solid majority in Greece for staying in the euro. Yet I find it hard to believe that the people of Greece can for months and years take the extreme pain demanded of them, with the only argument being "to leave the euro would be worse". The personal stories are already heartrending. The journalist, teacher, civil servant reduced to queueing at the soup kitchen. Students in a "lost generation" who have left the country or are about to. Unemployment at 21% and rising. An estimated 150,000 businesses that have closed. The minimum wage to be cut by more than one fifth. Thousands sleeping on the streets. The homeless by night; demonstrators by day. The octogenarian musician Mikis Theodorakis ? a favourite with generations of German tourists ? has called for an "uprising". And the government has to implement a bunch of further austerity and liberalisation measures over the next week, before it can get the ?130bn bailout.

Sitting at his regular table in the pub, his Stammtisch, the reader of Germany's tabloid Bild may still mutter, "Well, they have only themselves to blame." But he would be wrong. It is true that a very large share of the blame lies with irresponsible, deceitful and corrupt Greek policies and business practices. But the scale of this mess, and the difficulty of getting out of it, also results from the fact that Greece was accepted into a badly designed, over-extended eurozone; that the way bond markets and banks (including German and French ones) treated that eurozone positively encouraged such irresponsibility; and that this bailout is as much to help those banks as it is to help Greece. So the blame must be shared.

Even if you disagree with that, the responsibility for getting out of it is still shared. This is obviously true so long as Greece remains in the eurozone; but even if Greece leaves, it will remain a member of the EU, and there will be a moral and historical responsibility that derives from having got into this mess together.

Then there's that troublesome thing we call, from the ancient Greek, democracy. Many European leaders privately agree with the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, that it would be better if Greece did not have an election scheduled for this April. Democracy? Ask the people? What an appalling idea. But the Greek people will be asked. Unless they are shown some realistic prospect of growth, parties opposed to the draconian terms of the bailout may yet gain a majority. No one will then be able (though some may privately wish) to follow Bertolt Brecht's famous ironic suggestion: dissolve the people and elect another.

At that moment, Angela Merkel will have more than a year to go to her own general election, which she is self-evidently determined to win. The eurozone will then be torn between the maximum pain that Greek voters will accept and the maximum price that Merkel believes German voters are prepared to pay. That dilemma ? call it Merkel's fork ? is just the most critical example of the deeper problem of this eurozone: the contradiction between already European policies and still national politics. You could have close, similar economies and still diverse politics (the nordozone that might have been). Or you could have fairly diverse economies if you had converged politics, with one eurozone election for one eurozone government. That common politics would then allow for the financial transfers to compensate for differences, as in the United States, and work towards economic convergence in the longer term. What is unsustainable is to have, within a single currency zone, both divergent national economies and divergent national politics.

So far as I can see, there are only two ways out of this. One is that Germany, all other European governments (including Britain's), the European Central Bank, the EU institutions, the IMF and every other relevant player work over the next few weeks, like Mozart in his most inspired frenzy, do what every sensible political economist (including many in Germany) says is necessary: produce a strategy for short- to medium-term growth as well as fiscal consolidation and structural reform. For as Mohamed el-Erian, the chief executive of the giant bond investment firm Pimco, observes, this week's agreement "leaves Greece's basic problem unresolved. The country still faces the prospect of too much debt and way too little growth."

That strategy for growth must not only be found, it must be seen to be found ? seen by Greek voters, that is, before the next election. The other alternative is that, sooner or later, Greece leaves the eurozone. The former is more desirable, the latter more probable.

Twitter: @fromtga

These days, we can add a fourth: never knowingly under-referenced within plans to reform the welfare state. In 2010, London's Lambeth council announced an intention to remould itself according to the "John Lewis model". Last June, David Cameron unveiled plans to turn parts of the public sector into "John Lewis-style" mutuals. This week, a rightwing thinktank suggested turning state schools into John Lewis-like companies. A planned free school in Suffolk will be a John Lewis-style partnership, while an NHS hospital in Cambridgeshire and a care unit in Swindon already claim to operate along those lines. Even Nick Clegg has talked about making other firms in the private sector operate a bit more like John Lewis.

The John Lewis business model gives each employee part-ownership of the company, a share of its annual profits, and a say in how it is run. In theory, it makes employees more invested ? literally ? in their work, and so heightens both productivity and profits. At least, that's how it works at John Lewis itself. Critics argue that the right's proposals either only pay lip service to the scheme on which they are based ? or are simply a way of making privatisation seem fluffier. This week's plans could encourage stakeholders (teachers, pupils) to work harder. On the flipside, they could also lead to the outsourcing of a school's management structures, and thereby make teachers less accountable. Suffolk's Breckland Free School has already outsourced its management to a private firm, and won't be overseen directly by the parents who set it up.

Lambeth's John Lewis council promised much ? community involvement in exchange for council tax rebates ? but has been criticised for playing an active role in privatisation. Only last week the council sold off a community-run arts centre to developers. And what of the Swindon care unit? In the words of cabinet office minister Francis Maude: "It's a mutual where there's no financial incentive. They will own it, but with no profit share or anything, no financial upside. They will have to take out 30% of their cost over the next four years and they are really excited about it." In other words, it's a John Lewis partnership, but without most of the rewards. Unless you count swingeing cuts as a good thing.

Nick Clegg's ideas seem the most appropriate interpretation of the John Lewis model: they're about making capitalist structures fairer. But proposals to turn public services into John Lewis-style firms seems slightly disingenuous. After all, the NHS ? which gives citizens both a say in its organisation (at the ballot box) and a piece of its resources (in the surgery) ? might already be the biggest John Lewis model going.

After the furore surrounding the award of a near-£1m bonus for chief executive Stephen Hester ? - which he waived ? he is still on course to be handed £600,000 in bonuses next month while close colleagues in the next few weeks could be handed up to £11m depending on the share price and their performance.

David Hillman, a spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, on Wednesday:"It is incredible that while the rest of us suffer, a loss-making bank bailed out by the taxpayer is allowed to pay out hundreds of millions in bonuses. The British public is getting a raw deal from RBS and the wider financial sector: it is time they were made to pay their fair share rather than line their own pockets." TUC general secretary Brendan Barber added pay and bonuses were "out of control" in the City.

Making reference to Hester's salary, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott said that "every small business in Britain would love to have their bosses' pay frozen at £1.2m".

The bonus pot, expected to be just under £400m, is more than half the £950m paid out in 2010 .The chief executive will on Thursday present a three-year report card to set out the progress the bank is making - despite the £21bn loss the taxpayer is currently incurring in its 82% stake - along the path to recovery following the near £24bn record-breaking loss he inherited in 2008.

Hester will add further detail to the £38bn of costs that have already been incurred to clean-up the bank. Some £28bn relate to losses on loans which have turned sour and almost £3bn from restructuring charges as 33,000 roles have been shed since the financial crisis.

Hays posted a 24% rise in pre-tax profit to £60m for the six months to the end of December, but, like many of its rivals, has seen growth slow rapidly as confidence among clients to hire, and candidates to consider moving jobs, is dampened by economic uncertainty.

Hays's half-year dividend to shareholders will be cut by 55% to 83p.

? Several rallies planned - full timings
? Germany and the Netherlands divided over bailout fund
? Fitch downgrades Greece to C
? Pensioners march in Athens
? Disappointing data hints at euro recession
? Bank of England divided over QE
? Today's agenda

5.46pm: In the absence of any other major developments, time to call it a day. Pensioners are marching in Athens, fears of a eurozone recession have intensified after some disappointing economic numbers and Greece has been downgraded by Fitch from CCC to C - the level that indicates default is inevitable. Good night - we'll be back tomorrow.

5.11pm: In France, the Socialists' abstention in a parliamentary vote on Europe's future bailout fund has fuelled concerns about how a possible left-wing presidential election victory would affect the eurozone crisis.

The Socialist Party, whose candidate François Hollande leads opinion polls for the April-May election, sat out Tuesday's lower house vote to create a permanent fund called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in protest at austerity measures across Europe. This did not stop the the bill passing in the conservative-led National Assembly, though.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government called the move a "historic error" and berated the Socialists. Even the left-leaning newspaper Liberation was critical in an editorial, comparing them to ostriches.

Some of them quibbled, most found the most pressing thing to do was not decide and others stepped up their vindictive jibes. If the left wins power, it needs to do better. And know what it wants.

Government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse told Reuters:

A vote today against the ESM is a vote against Europe, a vote against the euro and a vote against European solidarity, and it's not behaviour fitting to the gravity of the situation.

Prime Minister François Fillon accused the Socialists of bringing election campaign tactics into parliament. Hollande has pledged to seek to amend an EU fiscal compact agreed last month to add clauses on growth and investment. While he is staunchly pro-European and advocates fiscal discipline, his stance raised questions about the compatibility of his views with Germany's in resolving the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

George Magnus, senior economic advisor at UBS, told Reuters:

I don't think this is a game changer. But it can be interpreted as revealing a part of the Socialist platform - that to be European we have to be very pro-growth - which is at odds with the Germanic view on what solidarity means.

If we see more instances like this in the run-up to the election, they could be perceived as marking out a political and negotiating position vis-a-vis Germany which would be seen as quite different and potentially capable of causing uncertainty about how the process would evolve.

5.03pm: The Greek parliament finance committee has approved the debt swap bill, news aggregation service RANsquawk reported.

European stock markets have closed. The FTSE 100 in London edged down 0.2%, or 11.65 points, to 5916.55. Germany's Dax lost 0.9% and France's CAC shed 0.5%.

4.42pm: If you're interested in footage from the streets of Athens, there's a live feed on Stop Cartel.

And I'm now handing this blog over to Julia Kollewe for the final push. Thanks all.

4.35pm: In the currency markets the pound hit a 10-week low against the euro, of ?1.1825, which means one euro buys 84.56p.

William Poole of FC Exchange blamed this morning's Bank of England minutes, which showed that two policymakers wanted an even larger injection of quantitative easing:

Everyone is well aware that the UK economy is in dire straits, and today's central bank report only serves to reinforce this view. A disparity in opinion, in those charged with dictating policy to help the UK economy grow, merely highlights the struggles faced by the UK.

4.23pm: In the bond markets, Greece's five-year bond yield has passed 56% today - a sign that the bailout has lost yet more credibility, says economist Shaun Richards.

He blogged yesterday about how the economic accumptions behind the bailout are flawed (and worthy of Alice in Wonderland) here:

3.52pm: One of Finland's lawmakers has told Dow Jones this afternoon that he expects the Finnish parliament to approve the new Greek package.

That comes a few hours after a German MP, Wolfgang Bosbach said he would oppose it when the Bundestag votes next week.

Many Greeks, of course, would welcome the idea of the package being voted down by the German parliament. There's some dark humour out there.

Here's how regular reader James Wilkins of Kalamaria responded to the new plan, and the news the new bailout fund would be placed in an escrow account and dolled out to Greece by troika officials:

A deal of such mind-boggling complexity can never work. The people who made it should be kept in a special escrow account in Brussels and released in stages, but only when ordinary, hard-working Greeks are sure their lives are improving.

3.33pm: Makis Sinodinos, a journalist in Athens, reports that 10 people have been temporarily detained by police in Athens so far today.

People on the streets are also talking of a stronger than usual presence of undercover police on the streets,

#Greece #rbnews Witness on phone from #Syntagma: "Very weird vibe here today, undercover cops on every corner, no one looks normal" #22fgr

? Theodora Oikonomides (@IrateGreek) February 22, 2012

PS - we thought we has a picture of an undercover policeman in Athens, but at second glance it probably wasn't, so we've deleted it.

3.25pm: Now hearing from Athens that the marches are well underway, but the turnout is (as feared at 3.15pm) poor.

3.11pm: Developments from Athens where our correspondent Helena Smith says unionists have just told her that ? contrary to earlier expectations ? they are not expecting a great turnout today.

Helena reports:

Organisers of the demonstrations planned outside the Greek parliament now say they are not anticipating a mass turn out, partly because of the weather (the rain has stopped but its still damp and very wet) and partly, I sense, because of protest fatigue. Earlier today there were several spontaneous protests outside the ministries of labour and health.

Helena continues:

"We expect it to be very small mostly because it's raining and people spent most of the morning protesting," said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the civil servants' union Adedy. But while today's demonstrations were likely to end up being symbolic, Iliopoulos said this would not be the case in future.

"At first we were demonstrating about cuts but now they want to take away everything. People are literally hungry and the number of homeless is growing every day " he said. Greek authorities, he claimed, now had one tactic when dealing with crowds: stun grenades and tear gas.

"As we have seen the tactic whenever crowds gather is 'disperse them with chemicals, tear gas. The demonstration Sunday before last was outrageous. It had hardly began when police started toxic chemicals into the crowd. Well, you can do that once or twice but with people so angry that tactic is soon not going to work. Honestly I don't rule out a popular revolt."

Iliopoulos also explained that trade unions were in the process of joining up with other "forces and movements" to make "more of an impact."....

2.57pm: There's a rumour this afternoon that Greece's general elections might be postponed, rather than being held in April.

Environment minister George Papaconstantinou set the hare running by telling Die Zeit that a delay would give PM Papademos "a bit more time" to implement economic reform plans.

Papaconstantinou said:

It would be good if the government of Lucas Papademos got a bit more time. People must feel that things have changed. But that depends on our partners.

The comments have been seized on by Greek media today. A few thoughts:

1) Any delay would infuriate those already angry that an unelected prime minister is running Greece. When Papademos was installed, the agreement was that the former ECB vice-president would only run the show until April.

2) "A bit more time" probably won't make any difference, when people are facing austerity for at least the next five years

3) George Papaconstantinou is a member of Pasok, who are on track to be routed at the polls. A delay would give them a chance to rebuild their popularity. [But 2) also applies]

UPDATE: Our correspondent Helena Smith points out that Papaconstantinou is echoing the views of his boss and close friend George Papandreou:

Papandreou, whose leadership of the socialist Pasok party is not expected to last long (elections for the post are expected to take place in March) has made it very plain he would like to see Papademos, for whom Papandreou stepped aside last November, stay in the position until October 2013 when his own tenure would have run out. That would indeed give the Pasok party time to improve its dismal ratings in the polls -- at last take hovering aroud 12%. Not since the creation of the party by Papandreou's own father, Andreas, has its popularity been so low.

Speaking of George Papandreou...he has given an interview to the BBC in which he demands "more respect" from Greece's critics.

Papandreou sad:

Speculation over whether Greece will stay in the euro has created 'great pain' and even contribued to the recession by deterring people from investing.

2.39pm: Prime minister Lucas Papademos met with the Greek president today to discuss the country's second rescue package. He issued a statement after the talks (see it here in Greek)

The statement doesn't include much new (so don't start swotting up on your Greek specially). Papademos basically said Greece now needs to pass legislation approving the programme, and complete the PSI agreement.

He added that the decisions taken will create conditions that are

conducive to growth and the recovery of the Greek economy.

Regular readers might remember that Greek president Karolos Papoulias surrended his ?286k salary a week ago, in solidarity with the workers. They might also recall that we reported his salary as ?400k (bigger than Barack Obama's). That was a mistake, I'm afraid, which was later corrected. Sorry about that.

2.20pm: Bank shares in Athens have fallen sharply today, after rallying strongly in recent days.

National Bank of Greece is down 10%, while Piraeus Bank's lost 11%.

The selloff is driven by the expectation that the recapitalisation of Greece's banking sector will cost even more than previously feared, which would leave existing shareholders owning even less.

2.10pm: Another photo from the first protests of the day:

....Here, protesters shout slogans during an anti-austerity rally by employees of the Workers Housing Organisation in front of the Athens parliament.

1.47pm: Apologies if you're having trouble accessing the blog. We are experiencing technical issues on our website at the moment.

I"m assured that we're looking into it urgently.

Update: The best bit of the blog has vanished. Hopefully your comments will be back very soon.

1.24pm: We have news on Greece's debt swap, which is meant to cut its total borrowings by ?107bn.

Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos has told the Athens parliament that the formal offer to bondholders will begin on February 24 at the latest (so perhaps not today after all), with the exchange occuring on March 12.

However, Greek bonds that were issued under British law (which make up a small proportion of the total debt pile) will not be swapped until early April.

The main difference between those British-law securities, and those issued locally, are that they contain "Collective Action Clauses" allowing the government to automatically declare a default if creditors don't take part in a voluntary restructuring.

12.56pm: A reminder that we have a flickr account that covers protests in Greece (click here).

Also, if you are there, we'd be grateful for any contributions from the streets today - it really complement's Helena's reporting from the ground. My email address is graeme.wearden@guardian.co.uk, and/or you could post in the comments below.

12.47pm: Athens is gearing up for this afternoon's protest marches (details here)

Several subway stations were due to close at 3pm local time (or 1pm GMT)

#Greece Subway stations #Syntagma & Monastiraki to close at 3pm ahead of #22fgr protests, on orders of police, via @athenstransport #rbnews

? Theodora Oikonomides (@IrateGreek) February 22, 2012

And on the streets, employees from the state-run Workers' Housing Organization have marched, peacefully, in Athens.

As you can deduce, it's still raining in Athens.

12.09pm: The European Commission is withholding ?495m of EU development funds from Hungary after the country failed to reduce its deficit.

These funds are means to support the EU's poorer regions. It is the first time the European Commission has proposed to suspend development funds from one of its members over an excessive deficit.

David Gow reports from Brussels:

The EC flexed its new fiscal surveillance muscles by threatening to suspend almost ?0.5bn in structural aid to Hungary for persistently breaching budget deficit rules.

Olli Rehn, EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, said: "Today's decision has to be regarded as a incentive to correct a deviation (from fiscal prudence) and not as a punishment."

He told reporters that Hungary had been in "excessive deficit" ? breaching the 3% of GDP ceiling ? since it joined the EU in 2004 despite repeated warnings to get its fiscal house in order.

Rehn was also dismissive of Budapest's argument that it brought its deficit below the 3% ceiling in 2011, arguing it was due to one-off factors.

11.38am: Just in. Fitch has cut its credit rating on Greece from CCC to C, the level that indicates default *is inevitable*.

It explained that the debt-swap deal will constitute a "distressed debt exchange". Once the swap is completed, it will lower Greece's rating to RD (for restrictive default), and then re-rate the country "at a level consistent with the agency's assessment of its post-default structure and credit profile".

You can read the full statement here.

What's not clear, though, is whether this move means that insurance policies on Greek bonds will pay out, as Chris Adams of the FT was quick to point out:

In summary, Fitch move on Greece is technical, as with S&P, part of the bond swap process. More interesting is whether CDS will be triggered

? Christopher Adams (@ChrisAdamsMKTS) February 22, 2012

11.22am: The German government has insisted that it will not support an expansion of Europe's bailout fund, despite growing pressure from other countries.

Speaking in Berlin, Angela Merkel's press spokesman Steffen Seibert said that Germany saw no need to increase the upper limit of the European Stability Fund beyond ?500bn.

The move puts Germany on a collision course with other countries, including the Netherlands, whose finance minister today said he favoured an expansion to ?750bn.

Seibert said:

The German government's position has not changed -- that means no, it is not necessary....What was agreed with partners was that in March there would be an examination of the size.

As we reported this morning, European diplomats believe that next week's EU summit would be asked to endorse proposals to merge the lending capacity of the existing eurozone bailout fund, the EFSF, with that of the new European Stabilisation Mechanism ? giving a firewall of between ?650bn and ?750bn.

Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told Le Monde today that his government is ready to combine the two funds, to create a pool worth ?750bn.

Seibert also insisted that Portugal and Ireland will not be offered more generous terms on the back of Greece's new deal (under which the interest payment on its first package are cut).

11.09am: One demonstration has already taken place in Greece today.

Pensioners marched outside the Athens parliament this morning, as the photo above shows. Pensions have already been hit by previous austerity measures, and many face further cuts as the price of the deal agreed on Monday.

But (obviously) it's not just pensioners who are suffering. CNN has published a piece on the human cost of the crisis, with teachers, students and IT workers explaining how their lives have changed

10.45am: There are also reports this morning that the IMF is planning to contribute as little as a tenth of the new Greek package.

Süddeutsche Zeitung reports from New York that Christine Lagarde is playing hardball, proposing that the IMF should contribution at most ?13bn or a tenth compared with 27% of the first ?109bn package. The IMF's managing director, moreover, won't press the release button for this - as the Guardian reported today - until the EU/Eurogroup agree to combine the two bailout funds, the current EFSF and pending ESM, to produce a firewall against contagion of up to ?750bn.

As David Gow reports, this idea is not popular in Berlin:

The Munich-based left-liberal daily suggests that Lagarde favours eurobonds - more anathema for the Fatherland - and is unimpressed by austerity at all costs. It detects the influence of David Lipton, her deputy and ex-director for international economic questions in the White House which is sharply critical of the EU's dilatoriness and, well, stinginess in solving the euro crisis.

Lipton wants a growth strategy rather than "a downward spiral of loss of confidence, stagnation and fewer jobs" in one of the richest regions of the world.

10.33am: It's not only in Greece that the protests against the second Greek bailout are mounting: Spiegel-Online reports that the chairman of the Bundestag's home affairs committee, Wolfgang Bosbach, will vote against when the package comes up for approval - probably on February 27.

Bosbach says it's a huge step towards a mutual liability union "burdening future generations with risks" that are "intolerable."

The German taxpayers' federation is calling on deputies to reject the package, claiming German taxpayers are liable for up to ?320bn - "and an exit of Greece from the euro should not be taboo". Werner Hoyer, former Liberal (FDP minister, now president of the European Investment Bank, says Greece needs a new Marshall Plan as well as a savings programme.

None of this is helped, say Spiegel, by news from the Greek parliament that the budget deficit this year will be 6.7% rather than the original forecast/planned 5.4%. Further proof, if any were needed, that austerity equals recession equals more debt equals a third rescue package - or bust.... (my colleague David Gow writes)

10.17am: Union leaders are expecting a large turnout at this afternoon's demonstrations (details here), even though it's raining in Athens.

Adedy spokeswoman Tania Karayiannis told Helena that:

If the weather doesn't prevent people from coming we expect the demonstration to be big.

Karayiannis added that this afternoon's protests, which will converge on the Athens parliament, will be followed by many more.

This is just the beginning. There will be lots of strikes and protests and we are in the process of deciding exactly when they will take place.

10.12am: After this morning's disappointing PM data, some better news on the eurozone industrial sector.

New industrial orders across the region jumped by 1.8% in December, reversing November's 1.1% fall. Capital goods orders (which includes heavy duty machinery) jumped by 4.2%, while the only big fall was for 'durable consumer goods', which dropped by 2.7%.

I don't believe there's a country-by-country breakdown, though.

9.55am: News in from Athens where Helena Smith, our correspondent, says unions have gone on the war path barely a day after Greece's new rescue programme was announced.

Mass protests are planned for 4pm (2pm GMT) local time outside the Greek parliament ? around the time it will vote on controversial legislation that will further erode wages and pensions (we blogged the timings here).

Helena explains:

The Greek Federation of workers (GSEE), which represents the country's largest work force and Adedy, the civil serrvants' union, have announced demonstrations in what is set to be a new wave of protests against a new wave of austerity measures that are the trade off for yet aid more for debt-straddled Greece. Pame, the communist-aligned unionist, will stage a separate protest rally at 5pm. The legislation has been submitted as an emergency bill - part of a barrage of reforms that technocrat prime minister Lucas Papademos has pledged to fast track before the next EU summit on March 1.

In a statement, the unions attacked:

The demolishment of labour law, the new cuts in principle and supplementary pensions, the demolishment of the welfare state, the eradication of public services ? and new lay offs in the public sector constitute the new barbaric measures which the coalition government is hastily voting through to win favour with the troika [EC, ECB and IMF] and lenders.

Helena continues:

Commentators this morning say the "big bet is on" with the passage of a barrage of reforms the prelude to overhauling the way Europe's weakest link works.

"We will live in a very different Greece from now. The country is changing. It's a new reality, new era, we all have to change," said news anchor Nikos Evangelatos.

The big question was not so much whether the country would meet its debt repayments, now that it had secured emergency funds, but whether with the internal devaluation it was going through Greeks would be "saved" by prices also going down.

9.34am: Breaking ? two members of the Bank of England's MPC wanted a bigger quantitative easing injection this month.

Minutes from the meeting, just released, showed that the committee was split 7-2. Adam Posen and David Miles wanted the electonic money-creating programme increased by £75bn, but the rest of the committee voted for a £50bn increase.

The news has sent the pound falling 0.7 of a cent, to $1.5705.

My colleague Simon Goodley explains:

The news is likely to re-open the debate about whether the central bank will add further QE in May, especially as the minutes showed that other MPC members saw a case for doing no further stimulus at all this month.

Miles and Posen argued there was a risk of a prolonged period of depressed demand causing inflation to fall materially below target in the medium term. Moreover, extra QE now would reduce the risk of a spiral of increasing unemployment and scrapping of capacity by firms.

However, most MPC members argued a bigger increase than £50bn "risked sending a signal that the committee thought the economic situation was weaker than it was".

The MPC members who voted for 50 billion more QE were not wholly united. "For some members ... a case could be made for maintaining the stance of policy at this meeting," the minutes said.

9.16am: The latest economic data from the eurozone is a disappointment.

The Composite PMI (a survey of purchasing manager conducted by Markit) came in at 49.7, down from the 50.4 recorded in January. That covers the region's manufacturing and services sectors.

A figure below 50 shows a contraction, and will fuel fears that the eurozone will officially fall into recession this quarter.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, commented:

A retreat back below the 50.0 no-change level for the euro-zone PMI is a disappointment, and highlights the ongoing risk that the region may be sliding back into recession.

9.05am: Three seperate rallies are scheduled to take place in Athens today. Here's the details, via Living In Greece.

? The ADEDY and GSEE unions (the two biggest in Greece) have called a rally set for 16:00 EET (2pm GMT) outside Parliament in Athens.
? Insurance Fund employees to rally at 12:00 EET (10am GMT) outside OEK Patission and Solomou in Athens.
? PAME Communist workers group will begin a rally at 17:00 EET (3pm GMT), starting from Omonia and converging with union protest outside Parliament in Athens
? A second rally is being organised in Thessaloniki begins at 18:30 EET (4.30pm GMT) at the Venizelos statue.

8.52am: Grzegorz Kolodko, the former deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Poland, has come out firmly against the ?130bn package today.

Kolodko, who now teaches at Kozminski University in Warsaw, is the latest senior politician to argue that Greeces's economy cannot return to strong growth in the face the measures that are being piled on. Society is being pushed to its limits:

In three years of austerity Greece's debt has risen from 113 per cent of gross domestic product to 163 per cent. Homelessness has jumped by 25 per cent. Unemployment has risen to 21 per cent, among the highest in the industrialised world, with 48 per cent of young people out of work. It is naïve to think they will watch TV, not demonstrate or fight in the streets. This policy is senseless.

Kolodko advocates wiping out 80% of Greece's external debt, plus an EU loan at zero interest rate.:

The easiest solution would be for the European Central Bank to buy new issues of Greek government bonds, but its hyper-liberal statutes and German ethos will not allow it to do so. The ECB has off-balance sheet resources of ?3.3tn, equivalent to the current value of its seigniorage. If it is only used properly, the issue of eurozone sovereign debt can be resolved.

The full comment piece is here.

8.41am: Europe's stock markets opened flatly this morning, with the FTSE 100 down 9 points at 5919 in London. Other markets are more or less flat.

Traders say that the uncertainty over whether the Greek pacakge will a) be agreed, and b) work, means shares aren't heading higher (despite the Dow Jones index hitting its highest level since 2008 last night)

Chris Weston of IG Index explained:

The sights of the market are firmly fixed on the level of private sector involvement and how the market will take the prospect of hedge funds or investment banks claiming insurance from their credit-default swaps held over Greek debt if they aren't one of the potential 66% that are going to participate on a 'voluntary' basis.

We actually feel that the use of the CAC (collective action clauses) and subsequent triggering of CDS (credit default swaps) would not be that negative, and would show the system actually works.

8.27am: "Whatever eurozone finance ministers were smoking in their all-night marathon talks it must have been something strong".

That's the verdict of m'learned colleague Larry Elliott this morning. Our economics editor says that it's theoretically possible that the rescue package could succeed. After all:

It is all so simple: for a new wonder economy to arise in the Aegean what has to happen is for Greece's recession to end immediately, for the economy to have six consecutive years of strong growth from 2014 onwards; for the Greeks to submit to their eurozone partners' humiliating terms; for the bailout to be given the thumbs-up by the sceptical parliaments in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, and for the assorted hedge funds, banks and insurers that make up Greece's private-sector creditors to accept a 53% "haircut" on their investments.

And if that happens.... Greece will still have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%, the equivalent of Italy today.

Larry concludes that Greece will ultimately leave the euro. But, as IfigEusLannuon points out below, he doesn't give a date. Any predictions?

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph's Jeremy Warner is scathing about the Charles Dellara (or Doolally, as he dubs him), for suggesting that Greece will return to growth despite official forecasts showing that the country faces five years of austerity.

Unfortunately, growth is one of the many things the Greeks don't have, and, according to the eurozone's own analysis, are most unlikely to get ? in large part as a direct result of the eurozone's own policy prescription of never-ending austerity.

Mr Dallara must surely know that the plan is based on completely unrealistic economic assumptions, and therefore cannot succeed on the terms proposed.

8.15am: Greece's two largest unions have organised demonstrations in Athens this afternoon, beginning at 4pm local time. I'll blog more details in a moment.

On the economics front, we're getting new data showing how the eurozone's services and manufacturing sectors performed in January. France's data is already out, showing a surprise upturn. Industrial orders data is also due.

In the UK, the Bank of England minutes will also show whether its Monetary Policy Committee was unanimous in expanding its quantitative easing programme by another £50bn this month.

Here's today's agenda:

? Bank of England minutes - 9.30am
? Eurozone manufacturing+services PMI data - 9am GMT / 10am CET
? Eurozone industrial New Orders - 10am GMT / 11am CET
? Demonstrations in Athens - from 2pm GMT / 4pm EET

8.00am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone debt crisis.

Greece is still top of the agenda today. Its ?130bn financial assistance package may have been agreed yesterday morning, but a growing band of critics are questioning whether the plan will work.

Protests are expected on the streets of Athens today, at a demonstration organised by trade unions. That should show the depth of public anger over the plan, which will mean years of IMF-directed austerity for Greece.

With just nine days to secure the new package, Greece may also open its bond swap with private creditors today.

Northern England's links with the United States, which include the gift to the world of Wrigley's chewing gum, have been mightily emphasised today in Sunderland.

The city on the Wear has its own special Friendship Agreement with Washington DC, the only non-capital city in the world to do so. An uneven match? Not at all. Without Sunderland and area, there might never have been George Washington.

Hence the ceremonies at his family's old home, Washington Old Hall, which is very much worth a visit. While the British Embassy in Washington hosted a reception to mark the renewal of of the agreement, local people got together at the Wearside end to do their bit as well.

Encouragingly, for those who expect such things to be the preserve of people my age, the programme was much enlivened by young people. David Crone, chair of Sunderland youth parliament, read the American declaration of independence (the model for northern England's forthcoming breakaway), Lauren Waine of Monkwearmouth school sang the American national anthem and Martyn Foster from Broadway junior school read Martin Luther's eloquent speech, I have a dream.

Pupils from George Washington primary school joined in as well, before the Mayor of Sunderland ? let's hope it becomes a Lord Mayoralty soon, now that the place is a city ? Coun Norma Wright concluded proceedings.

There is a practical point to all the fun and games (and useful history). Contemporary Sunderland is famous for its links with Japan, through the Nissan plant, but are many American business connections as well.

United States firms account for one of the biggest shares of local inward investment, such as the Lear Corporation which is launching a new production plant at Rainton Bridge, creating 300 jobs. The TRW Automotive company already employs the same number at its steering systems plant, which was opened in 1989.

Looking the other way, the Sunderland firm SaleCycle, which recovers abandoned shopping trolleys online, has a sales office on the edge of Washington DC. At the small business level, Phil Vickery, one of Wearside's glass artists who cluster round the National Glass Centre, has found the Friendship Agreement more than just a twinning symbol.

He told the Old Hall get-together:

We need to keep doing this to form long-term relationships with US buyers. I have made strong contacts and captured opportunities that have led to friendships and being able to sell directly to the US market. Without this help it would be just about impossible for people like me to break into the US market.

Dominic Edmunds, founder and managing director of SaleCycle said:

We have recruited US staff, opened our office and generated sales directly into the US market. The good relationship which Sunderland has established with Washington DC was instrumental in all of this. Without the city council's connections it would have been much more difficult and taken far longer to achieve.

And Paul Willson, plant controller at TRW was happy too, that:

The Friendship Agreement builds the relationship, confidence and the possibility of investments between our two cities.

There's a way to go in the north east so far as jobs are concerned, as no one needs telling. But today has helped.

US crude hit a nine-month high of $106 (£67.62) a barrel this week, though it slipped slightly in trading on Wednesday night. The highest price recorded in dollars was $147 in July 2008, when the pound was stronger against the greenback.

Analysts said a growing boycott of supplies from Iran, which is Opec's second largest producer, had encouraged traders to hoard oil contracts at higher prices.

Prices have risen steadily over the last fortnight after a growing dispute between Iran and the UN over allegations that the Middle Eastern state is close to developing nuclear weapons. The UN's nuclear watchdog was forced to quit Iran earlier this month after talks on Tehran's atomic research broke down.

Russia warned Israel not to attack Iran over its nuclear programme, saying on Wednesday that military action would have catastrophic consequences.

Unable to act through the UN in the face of Russian resistance, the US has encouraged a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil and sanctions against its banks, but has stopped short of backing military action.

"Iran is still the main issue; it's keeping prices very well supported," said Andy Sommer, an analyst at EGL in Dietikon, Switzerland.

The jump in the oil market comes after the UK price of diesel reached a record 143p a litre last week and amid accusations in Europe and the US that high fuel prices are the result of a dysfunctional market.

UK refiners have come under fire for pushing up the price of fuel to maintain margins squeezed by falling demand. Most UK refiners are debt-laden independent operators struggling to repay debts in a period of declining sales.

Coryton, the Thames estuary refinery owned by Swiss oil group Petroplus, recently went bankrupt after it was unable to run at full capacity. Coryton is expected to return to capacity after a rescue bid, but could still struggle.

Demand has fallen across Europe and Asia following a slowdown in economic growth. Figures showing China's manufacturing sector contracted in February for a fourth straight month added to the gloom in the euro area, and stirred fears about fuel demand in the world's second-largest oil user.

Evidence that the poor economic situation is having a direct impact on the fuel market came from Singapore Airlines, which cut its cargo capacity by 20% as persistent weakness in demand and high jet fuel prices piled pressure on its profitability.

A high oil price was behind the sharp jump in UK inflation last year to above 5%. A rise this year could undermine George Osborne's hopes of a recovery. Officials in Spain, Italy and Greece are also watching the oil price closely because they are major importers, especially of Iranian crude, and are vulnerable to increased costs.

Several analysts have argued the deal struck between Brussels and Athens could be endangered by a further slump in Greek economic output following a sharp rise in oil prices.

The eurozone's service sector shrank unexpectedly this month, reviving fears that the economy could sink into recession, Markit's Eurozone Services Purchasing Managers' Index showed on Wednesday.

The author of a self-published webcomic about a band of heroes in a fantasy role-playing world has raised more than $1m (£600,000) from fans on "crowdfunding" website Kickstarter to bring his stories back into print, making The Order of the Stick the richest creative work in the crowdfunding site's history.

Author and illustrator Rich Burlew launched The Order of the Stick online in 2003. Following the comic fantasy adventures of a collection of stick figures in a role-playing game world as they struggle with enemies and the rules of the game, much of the story is available online for free, but Burlew also began self-publishing parts of it in paper format in 2005. When the costs of keeping it in print proved too high, Burlew turned to Kickstarter following repeated demands from readers, launching a project in January to raise the $57,750 he needed to rerelease the books in print.

Yesterday, he closed his fundraising project with 14,952 backers and $1,254,120 raised, making The Order of the Stick Kickstarter's most funded project by a single person ever and the most funded creative work the site has ever seen.

"I'm still shocked," Burlew said. "I was tragically underprepared. I never thought we'd get anywhere near the response we've gotten, and it's been a daily struggle to keep up with the progress of the whole thing. What I was thinking when I hit the Launch Project button was something roughly analogous to, 'I hope I'm not making a terrible mistake.' As it turned out, I wasn't."

Burlew offered fans a variety of options for donations: for $10, they could receive an Order of the Stick fridge magnet and a digital PDF of the original comic story (2,256 people took him up on this). For $100, there were four magnets on offer, for $200 there were books, prints and autographs available, for $600 there was an original crayon drawing by Burlew and for $5,000, the donator's original Dungeons & Dragons character could receive a walk-on cameo in The Order of the Stick webcomic. All options were sold out.

The author, who describes Order of the Stick as "a fantasy epic that doesn't take itself too seriously while still delivering a good story", believes that the comic's success lies in offering material for free.

"Unless you have the marketing department of a large corporation behind you, you're not likely to get enough people to take a chance on your unknown property, even through Kickstarter," Burlew said. "On the other hand, if you give it away first, people will form their opinion of you and your work before you ask them for money. And readers are a lot more likely to spend money on things they know they like than things they hope they will like. People want to own what they love, so rather than selling access to the content, sell the permanent incarnation of it ? be that a book or an ebook or a DVD or whatever. The best thing about giving away your content first is that when it comes time to sell the final product, you're going to have almost 100% customer satisfaction. No one is going to complain that they didn't like the story they bought, because every one of your customers knew they liked it before paying."

As markets dipped all over Europe amid fears that Greece would never be able to meet its debt obligations, Angela Merkel's chief spokesman said Berlin saw "no necessity" to enhance the planned ?500bn European stability mechanism (ESM), the new bailout fund due to be in place from July.

Highlighting how unpopular aid for Greece is in Germany, opposition to the bailout deal was growing within Merkel's coalition on Wednesday. Several MPs from Merkel's conservatives and her junior partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), said they planned to oppose the package, meaning that she would be unlikely to win next week's parliamentary vote on the deal without the humiliation of relying on her socialist and green opponents .

Merkel's weakening domestic position came as her government's stance on the ESM left Germany at loggerheads with not only the Dutch government but also the IMF and its managing director, Christine Lagarde. Both want the ESM to embrace funds still untouched within the current rescue fund, the European financial stability facility (EFSF).

It has between ?150bn and ?250bn left, which would allow the combined funds to total ?650-750bn ? still well short of the ?1 trillion originally forecast, let alone the ?2tn demanded by market players. Lagarde favours at least ?1tn being set aside ? and has further ruffled Berlin by calling for eurobonds to cover not only Greek but also, for example, Spanish and Italian debt in event of a wider crisis.

The IMF managing director is refusing ? before of next week's G20 meeting in Mexico ? to commit the IMF to a specific share of the new ?130bn bailout for Greece. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, has said it would be ?13bn ? plus ?10bn rolled over from the first ?109bn rescue.

This would amount to just 10% of the new fund compared with the 27% the IMF contributed to the first one. The Washington-based body is under pressure from the White House to resist European demands for more funds.

Jan Kees de Jager, the Dutch finance minister, who helped broker the deal on Greece, has made his support for the package dependent on an enhanced EFSF/ESM combination.

Doubts over the proposed Greek bailout spread to the markets and sent shares lower on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 edged lower for the second day running, closing down 11.65 points at 5916.55 after Tuesday's 17-point decline in the wake of the overnight Greek deal. Germany's Dax was down almost 1%, while France's Cac was 0.52% lower. The Athens market fell nearly 6%.

Lee McDarby, at Investec Corporate Treasury, said: "Serious reservations about the ability of the Greek government to push through the required fiscal cuts have hampered any positive market reaction so far."

Meanwhile the cost of insuring peripheral eurozone government debt against default rose again, with five-year Italian credit default swaps up from 380 basis points on Tuesday to 392. This means it would cost £380,000 to insure £10m worth of Italian debt. Spanish CDS contracts rose from 365 to 372 basis points, while Greece climbed from 70 to 72 basis points, according to data monitor Markit. Greece's five-year bond yield also passed 56%.

The French Socialists' abstention in a parliamentary vote on the bailout fund also showed that a possible leftwing presidential election victory in May this year could derail the EU's eurozone rescue efforts.

The Socialist party, whose candidate François Hollande leads opinion polls for the April-May election, sat out Tuesday's lower house vote on the creation of a permanent ESM in protest at austerity policies in Europe.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government called the move a "historic error" and berated the Socialists in parliament on Wednesday. Even the left-leaning newspaper Libération was critical in an editorial.

The abstention, which did not prevent the bill passing in the conservative-led National Assembly, was in line with Hollande's campaign pledge to seek to amend an EU fiscal compact agreed last month to add clauses on growth and investment.

The European commission, meanwhile, flexed its new fiscal surveillance muscles by threatening to suspend almost ?0.5bn in structural aid to Hungary for persistently breaching budget deficit rules.

The Work Programme (WP) carries not just the burden that it is expected to get more than a million long-term unemployed people back to work in the next two years, but also the weight of a set of heavy ideological expectations: it is the model for how the coalition seeks to reform public services by opening up state provision to private interests.

For Lord Freud, the welfare minister, it is not merely a technocratic innovation but a Great British Idea. We exported compulsory competitive tendering to the world in the 1980s, he proclaimed at a Conservative party conference fringe meeting last year; and now we have payment by results (PBR), the architecture which underpins WP, and will revolutionise how public services are provided.

It is still early days. PBR is being trialled tentatively in a range of relatively marginal areas of public services: offender rehabilitation; treatment for drug and alcohol addiction; housing support for vulnerable people; and some developmental services provided for young children through Sure Start centres. The WP is by far the biggest and riskiest experiment.

If it works, some estimate that tens of billions of pounds' worth of public services could be transferred to private and voluntary sector providers.

Ministers have also made the WP a test of its political credibility. Ministers launched it in June 2011 as "a massive boost for the big society". Asked last year what he had done for the "big society", the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, replied: "I've created the Work Programme."

The WP, ministers argued, would rescue charities pushed to the verge of bankruptcy by the widespread cuts to local government grants and contracts. This promise may come back to haunt them.

In theory, PBR is an elegant solution to the problem of how to spend less on public services while driving up productivity. It transfers risk from the taxpayer to private capital. Unlike WP's predecessor, the Flexible New Deal, for which providers essentially were paid regardless of outcome, WP only coughs up once firms can prove they have hit government-imposed targets for finding sustainable work for their clients.

Providers borrow huge sums on the commercial markets to finance their involvement in the scheme, in the hope that they perform well enough to trigger reward payments two years down the line.

In principle, the risk of not making a return on the capital they have invested is supposed to make WP providers not only more efficient, but more focused on the quality of outcomes. Jobseekers get a better service, more people find work, the government saves billions in unemployment benefits. If the provider fails to meet its targets, it doesn't get paid and the taxpayer is protected. Labour party shadow ministers are as attracted to this theory as the coalition.

So what is going wrong in practice? For a start, some believe the performance targets, drawn up before the job market started deteriorating rapidly, are impossibly onerous, potentially pushing the WP close to collapse.

The latest Department for Work and Pensions figures show that WP providers, already working to extraordinarily tight margins, are having to deal with unexpectedly high volumes of jobseeker referrals. There are simply not enough jobs in the market, critics argue, so the WP no longer stacks up financially.

In addition, the unexpected composition of referrals will upset many business plans. There are eight categories of WP jobseeker, each one carrying a different level of reward. Finding sustainable work for, say, a healthy 25-year-old with a track record of employment who had been out of work for a year might generate an upfront fee of £400 and a £4,000 success reward; a chronically sick 50-year-old who has been on incapacity benefit for 12 years might carry an upfront fee of £600 and a success payment of £14,000.

The latest figures show that the numbers of referrals in the more lucrative latter categories have slowed to a trickle (5,000 against an anticipated 20,000), mainly because so many people on incapacity benefit assessed as "fit for work" are appealing against the decision, clogging up the tribunals service.

Any provider ? and this will include many charities ? that based its business case on getting a high proportion of these clients on to their books early, may well be feeling a tight constriction on their cash flow.

This pressure is passed on down to the front line. Anecdotally, some frontline WP staff report they are being ordered to cut corners as cash gets scarce and resources become more thinly spread. They are given bigger case loads of clients to work with; they have cut some jobseeker services deemed too costly; pay has been cut and short-term contracts of employment introduced. Some providers even secretly referred clients to charities to carry out work for free that they, supposedly, have been paid for.

Here's one account, found on an industry talk thread, from a disillusioned worker employed by a WP subcontractor: "I've always used a holistic approach and have found that spending time with clients, helping them recognise their skills and realise their potential has reaped massive rewards for the individual. This was something that I truly loved to do and over the years helped many people back into employment.

"This method doesn't work so well under the provisions and restrictions of the Work Programme, as the primes [main providers] seem to be more concerned how many people we can sanction and how many boxes we can tick in the shortest time frame possible. Whatever happened to helping people?"

The suspicion that WP providers cut corners to reach payment targets is not a new one ? the same allegations were levelled at the Flexible New Deal ? but there must be a worry that the bleak structural problems in the job market, coupled with the desperate financial implications for providers, are distorting priorities, diminishing the quality of service, and opening up the system for potential abuse.

So far ministers have signalled that they have no intention of easing the pressure by cutting performance targets, effectively bailing out the providers. The bigger multinational companies involved in WP might have deep enough pockets to ride out the cash flow crisis.

For the smaller providers ? and many charity subcontractors, many of whom have yet to see more than a handful of referrals ? this could prove fatal.

If the WP crashes it will be bad for charities, jobseekers and ultimately the taxpayer. If it also demonstrates that PBR will generate a potentially toxic mix of top-down targets and irresponsible profit-seeking, there will be implications for the government's wider public service reform agenda.

Back with takeover talk, Shire added 23p to £22.48 on renewed speculation of a £35 a share bid, with Bayer the name in the frame. Pfizer and AstraZeneca have also been linked with Shire in the past. Separately Shire announced the European Medicines Agency had approved its manufacturing facility in Lexington, US, for the production of velaglucerase alfa (for the treatment of Gaucher Disease). The European Commission's decision is expected imminently.

Overall, with investors remaining cautious about this week's Greek bailout agreement, the FTSE 100 finished down 11.65p at 5916.55, its second day of decline since the Hellenic deal was unveiled.

Risk assets such as miners and banks found themselves unwanted. Vedanta Resources fell 73p to £13.80. Royal Bank of Scotland dipped 0.88p to 27.33p ahead of its results on Thursday while Barclays lost 8.55p to 239.2p.

Marks & Spencer was 5.8p lower at 349.1p. A report by Morgan Stanley labelled the retailer as facing the biggest problem with getting rid of unwanted properties. The bank said:

We believe UK consumer shopping behaviour is changing, leaving many retailers with increasingly ill-configured store portfolios. We believe Marks & Spencer faces the biggest challenge. Whilst several other retailers appear to have more exposure to struggling towns, we fear that Marks is going to find it most challenging to exit such locations, given the fact that it owns the freeholds to most of its stores.

Marks has also reportedly seen another senior departure, with Susan Aubrey-Cound, director of new channels, set to leave after 11 years with the business.

But Rexam rose 28.6p to 413p after the packaging group reported a 15% rise in full year profits to £450m and confirmed plans to sell its personal care business.

Capita climbed 42p to 688.5p as the outsourcing group was awarded a £50m a year contract to manage civil service training. Analysts had been concerned the company was not winning enough orders, but this new contract follows a British army recruitment deal announced last week.

Elsewhere, decent results from housebuilder Barratt Developments and smaller rival Galliford Try lifted both companies' share prices. Barratt was 10.1p better at 139.8p after moving from a half year loss of £4.6m to a profit of £21.6m. It has also got off to a good start to the second half with private sales up 21.8% in the first seven weeks and forward sales up 24.3%.

Rachael Waring at Panmure Gordon said

Barratt has reported a strong set of interim results with pretax profits of £21.6m, a few million ahead of the £15m we had factored in, [and] the group has reported a strong start to second half trading. Although the shares have enjoyed a fantastic performance already in 2012 (up 40%), we still believe that there is further to go. We maintain our buy recommendation, 158p target price and key sector pick stance.

Meanwhile Galliford, up 44p to 545p, doubled its half year dividend after profits rose 89% to £32.2m. It said the housing market, particularly in the south where it is focused, had remained resilient.

Finally leasing group 1pm jumped 10.5% to 0.105p after non-executive director, Ron Russell, bought 10,000,000 shares at 0.1p each.

Protest works! With the right action on the right issue at the right place and time, a small band of people can win the day ? or at least strongly influence the national debate. That's the message after the Right to Work far-left group hit the small Tesco store opposite the House of Commons, protesting against a workfare scheme that pressed people to stack shelves for free for a rich company. The issue was neat, precise and winnable.

No use demonstrating outside the Department for Work and Pensions, but companies are highly sensitive about their image. Private companies take risks if they take on ideological government policies. So, what a joy to see the rapid retreat of others from workfare ? Sainsbury's, Waterstones and Matalan among the fastest to escape.

Atos does the government's work capability assessments to test people on incapacity benefits, but it is said to be wary of applying to do the new personal independence payment tests, even more controversially replacing the disability living allowance. Who wants to cut out disabled children? Atos is notorious already for assessments that see 40% of complainants' cases overturned. Demonstrations outside its offices by people in wheelchairs suggests this is a toxic contract.

Workfare is transparently unfair to most people, substituting slave labour for big companies. Michael Heseltine's scheme that was dubbed workfare had three vitally different ingredients. He paid jobseeker's allowance recipients extra for working, he ensured the work was for charities or community projects ? no risk of job substitution ? and the job market was rising. Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling breached all those, absurdly calling objectors "job snobs". The protesters gave them the bloody nose they deserve.

After today's court judgment, the St Paul's Occupy protesters may move on or be removed. It's time to refresh and think up a new protest. Unlike the Tesco short, sharp targeted operation, Occupy has been broad canvas, thoughtful, and sometimes inchoate. They were never going to bring down capitalism ? nor expected to. But Stephen Hester can probably blame them for the loss of his bonus. Would the archbishop have come out so strongly against the deformities of the City without them? Look how every political party turned its rhetoric against over-mighty finance as a result of their action, once polls showed popular sympathy was on their side.

Traditional mass marches have some impact when hundreds of thousands turn out from all over the country. But the UK Uncut model of quick and clever hits against Topshop, Fortnum & Mason or Barclays makes a big noise with a few people on the right popular issue: everyone is outraged at the scale of Vodafone or Goldman Sachs's tax avoidance. See how George Osborne and HMRC are now under pressure and watch as next month's budget includes new anti-avoidance measures ? all praise to UK Uncut and Occupy. What next?

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The troubled retailer had attracted a great deal of interest from both trade and private equity bidders, KPMG said, but with stock levels running low the impetus was to conclude a deal quickly. Edinburgh Woollen Mill had previously dropped out of the running to buy Peacocks but its winning offer knocked out India's SKNL ? one of Peacocks's suppliers ? which had been expected to win the day.

Peacocks was forced to call in the administrators in January after talks to refinance the retailer's £600m debt pile fell apart. The retailer's financial structure was a hangover from the retail boom years: it was taken private for £420m in 2005 by a consortium whose members included Och-Ziff and Perry Capital, the hedge funds that helped bankroll Malcolm Glazer's controversial takeover of Manchester United in 2005, and Goldman Sachs. Its sister chain Bonmarché has already been sold to private equity group Sun European Partners.

Laverty said Peacocks had over-expanded during the boom years and found itself lumbered with "incredible" overheads ? mostly debt repayments and rent bills ? when sales proved harder to come by following the financial crisis.

"Peacocks suffered from a decline in consumer spending due to the tough economic conditions and this, combined with a surplus of stores and unsustainable capital structure, led to the business becoming financially unviable," she said.

Simmering tensions between the EU and the group of countries opposed to the bloc's expansion of its emissions trading scheme (ETS) to include aviation increased further today, after officials signalled that the so-called "coalition of the unwilling" had agreed a package of retaliatory measures.

Speaking following a meeting in Moscow of the group of 26 countries opposed to the new EU carbon pricing mechanism, Russia's deputy transport minister Valery Okulov told reporters diplomats had agreed a package of measures the countries could now use to undermine the scheme.

"Every state will choose the most effective and reliable measures which will help to cancel or postpone the implementation of the EU ETS," he was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.

He also confirmed the group would meet again in the summer in Saudi Arabia as it looks to increase pressure on the EU to delay or abandon its plans.

It remains unclear precisely what measures countries opposed to the ETS could adopt, although the Moscow Times newspaper yesterday quoted state carrier Aeroflot as saying the Kremlin is considering passing legislation that would make it illegal for Russian airlines to comply with the EU's rules.

"The Russian government is now reviewing a bill prohibiting Russian airlines to participate in emission trading: it means considering a retaliatory approach," the company said ahead of the Moscow talks.

China has similarly said it has banned its airlines from participating in the scheme, while the US Congress is also considering legislation that would have the same effect.

There are also reports that countries could suspend talks with the EU on new routes and landing rights, further hampering EU airlines.

Under the changes to the ETS, which came into effect at the start of this year, all flights in and out of the bloc must take part in the cap-and-trade scheme with airlines carrying emission allowances equivalent to their annual emissions. The vast majority of these allowances will be handed out for free, but firms will have to purchase some allowances, adding to their running costs and potentially leading to increased ticket prices.

The EU maintains that the scheme will incentivise airlines to operate more efficient fleets and encourage passengers to look at greener alternatives, such as rail and videoconferencing. Analysts have also argued that during the initial stages of the scheme carbon pricing will add only a couple of euros to ticket prices.

However, airlines and the countries opposed to the scheme have repeatedly argued that a regional scheme will lead to trade distortions and have called on the EU to drop the scheme in favour of long-running, but as yet unsuccessful talks, to agree an international carbon pricing mechanism.

It remains to be seen how the EU will respond to any retaliatory trade measures, although officials have repeatedly insisted that they will not water down the scheme, despite the escalating threat of a full-blown trade war.

Writing on Twitter in response to the meeting, EU Climate Change Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said: "Unfortunately, our question for Moscow meeting participants remains unanswered: what's your concrete, constructive alternative?"

Reuters - Banks led stocks lower on Wednesday as the S&P 500 stalled near a 10-month-high after signs of weak European business activity rekindled concerns about a recession overseas.

Reuters - Home resales rose to a 1-1/2-year high in January, pushing the supply of properties on the market to the lowest level in almost seven years in a hopeful sign for the housing sector.

AP - Stock markets advanced Friday on hopes that Greece would soon get its crucial second bailout and following another batch of upbeat U.S. economic news.

AP - Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Meg Whitman pleaded for patience Thursday as she described operational challenges and other internal problems that contributed to a decline in earnings at one of the world's largest technology companies.

AP - A strong holiday shopping season and hearty online sales pushed Macy's Inc.'s fourth quarter net income up 12 percent. That topped Wall Street's expectations, and the department store chain's stock hit a 52-week high.

AP - Oil prices rose Wednesday on the expectation that world supplies could be squeezed further because of ongoing tensions with Iran.