There are newspaper reports in Europe on Wednesday that General Motors has reached an agreement with Rupert Murdoch's news Corp to merge their satellite and television businesses.
While Tony Blair is out promoting his new book, retired General Richard Dannatt has just published his own entitled Leading From the Front which is being serialized in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
The canon their comparisons draw on is comprised not of writers but of the years of previous general elections, which toll percussively through too much newspaper commentary.