You can hardly move these days for tales of consultants smugly sending their latest batch of workers overseas to work in the Gulf and eastern Europe as the jobs look scarce in Blighty. However, after exhaustive research and no small amount of sacrifice, I can exclusively reveal the reason why UK firms are flocking overseas: the Swedish. Or more specifically Swedish engineers. Actually, it's female Swedish engineers. "Ever since our client found out that we had a Swedish division, we were the only business for them," says one enlightened consultant engineer. The Nobel prize for international relations surely awaits. Last weekend was a big one for the future of London - and not only because mayor Boris Johnson managed to visit an English city without seriously offending the locals (well, not yet anyway - good citizens of Birmingham, there is still time!). Two of the biggest jobs in the capital were advertised on Sunday. One is to be the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. This will basically mean being responsible for clearing up after the mop-headed one -so good luck to the winner. The second is head of procurement at Crossrail. Although the overall brief is to deliver a "world-class, affordable railway", the ￡16bn task comes with a "highly attractive six-figure package" salary. One possible area of cost-cutting does spring to mind ...
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