John Major has good reason to smile, the Tories are resurgent with an agreeable leader and his part-time job at the Carlyle Group is rewarding. So how much will he make from the forthcoming privatisation of Qinetic?

It will reap his firm (he is the chairman of Carlyle Europe) a £330 million return on an investment of £42 million.

Carlyle always rewards its people very well and this will reap him a seven-figure bung. Labour really doesn’t do these privatisations very well, it has excluded private investors from applying directly for shares. Not exactly popular capitalism, but an 800% return for foreign investors in three years. Is this the wealth redistribution Gordon Brown is always telling us about?

UPDATE: Tin-hat paranoia time, post goes up 10.48, within half an hour they come and stare at the blog for 8 minutes. They make death rays! You know what they did to David Kelly! Help!