How you interpret these tales will to a large part depend on your political perspective. (As the entertaining argument about Today story between former Conservative trade secretary Lord Young and Tom Hampson of the Fabian Society demonstrates).

However the FT story about tax paid (or not) by big business best demonstrates this.

The news that so little is paid by such large companies will come as something of a shock to many. As Michael Devereux of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation said: 'It is certainly surprising.'

Some may – generously – read it as a sign that small businesses make an enormous contribution to the exchequer's tax take.

As Bill Dodwell of Deloitte told the paper: 'That 700 of the largest companies and groups are only paying 54 per cent of corporation tax shows the giant contribution of small companies.'

Others, not least Richard Murphy on his blog, read it as a further sign that Something Needs To Be Done: 'Why do we allow a system where so many with obvious wealth contribute so little to the well-being of our society from which they benefit more than most? These companies need to be held to account.'

John Cullinane of Deloitte perhaps gets closer to my own take. He landed on the significant point that the largest companies that are paying tax are from the banking, insurance and oil and gas sectors.

These companies tend not, for different reasons, to use high gearing to reduce their bills.

More than anything that highlights just how vulnerable the exchequer is to a downturn in their fortunes. A sobering thought at a time of financial unease.

Last week Paul George, director of the FRC's Public Oversight Board, warned smaller firms may have to merge because of a decline in audit quality.

He told Accountancy Age TV: 'There's been deterioration in the grading [on the quality of audits]. Year on year, there's a different population but I think it's an interesting trend, which illustrates the challenge that many firms have of keeping up to date with all of the many regulatory demands that are placed on them.' (He makes further comments on audit quality and direction here and here).

The body's report to the secretary of state said that all the institutes' audit monitoring units had witnessed a downward shift in the quality of audits.

Of course there have been plenty of talking heads on hand to say it's not quality that's declining but the compliance burden that's increasing. And the latter is certainly true.

In many ways the ICAEW is damned if it does reduce the compliance burden on hard-pressed small firms and damned if it doesn’t.

Nevertheless acknowledging a decline in audit quality on the one hand and seeking to solve it by reducing regulation on the other is not going to be an easy sell if there is any evidence of a further decline in quality.

Overall UK turnover was up 15.3%, and gross profit by 21%. Gross profit from marketing, sales and retail increased by 21%, gross profit from other disciplines by 35%. However from the finance and accounting stream it increased by 14% - less than the rate of growth throughout the rest of the business.

Ingham says 'there is a shortage of good quality candidates in virtually all the markets in which we operate and … there remain numerous opportunities for further expansion in both our existing and new businesses in the second half of this year and beyond.'

However can the insatiable appetite for accountants which has existed for several years continue? Surely not…

I've said this before about recruitment firm results but while you can never draw absolute market conclusions on a single business's results, the fact that accountancy growth (in profits at least) is slowing at such a prominent recruiter can only point to a wider slowdown.

As Deloitte says: 'Whilst on average playing in a new stadium drove an immediate first year 51% increase in attendance, the "new stadium effect" is not the permanent panacea. The club’s performance on the pitch has to measure up to the quality of the new facilities to maintain attendance at the new, higher, levels particularly among the recent ‘converts’ to following the club live.  Some clubs have seen the “new stadium effect” quickly eroded even in the second year of relocation.'

Pretty obvious stuff. But  Mark Roberts, senior consultant in the Sports Business Group at the firm, adds a worrying and more explanatory note: 'Unfortunately, we have seen some clubs press ahead with stadium development plans without the evidence to substantiate the proposed development.  In these cases development plans often tend to come unstuck when funding for the plans is sought, or, worse still, a white elephant is born.'

And as PwC points out there are further examples of questionable financial decision-making.  SPL clubs collectively lost £9m in 2005/06. And some are running numbers that are clearly unsustainable in the long-term. Hearts' wage bill more than doubled to £10m, 97% of the clubs turnover.

With Leeds United's financial woes continuing (despite winning their opening match the club is bottom of League One on minus 12 points after incurring a 15 point penalty for failing to comply with the terms of the Football League's insolvency policy) the battle with financial instability clearly isn't won  yet .

'When my late husband [playwright, Jack Rosenthal]… and I first started earning the kind of money which merited attention being paid, we got into trouble with a tax bill, through the ministrations of, let’s be charitable, and say a “lazy” accountant,' she explains.

'I wish I could remember how or who recommended Goodman Jones but from the first meeting with Raymond Morris we knew we were in a safe pair of hands. Since that time those hands have received more cups of coffee, bagels, lunches, brunches and copies of my signature on pieces of paper covered in hyroglyphics than Zenadine Zidane has had recurring dreams.'

It's stirring stuff – and continues, humourously, for several more paragraphs. So congratulations to Raymond. But can it be beaten? I'd love to hear.

Clout aside, one of the most compelling reasons for rationalising the number of institutes for me has been to cut down on back office costs – administration, IT, research, staff and so on.

CIPFA and the ICAEW are already going down this route of course. But why stop there? And for that matter why confine thinking to just ICAS, CIMA, ACCA and the ICAI?

Brace yourself, why not the Law Society? Or the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors? The latter supports 130,000 members worldwide – as does the ICAEW.

Could the Bar Council be a viable partner. Or the British Medical Associations? Perhaps not. But the Institution of Civil Engineers has 80,000 members and the infrastructure required to support a membership base slightly larger than CIMA's.

Could a back office merger with a non-competitive institute be a way of assuaging sensitive memberships and of keeping costs down? It couldn't hurt, could it? Then we can move on to the question of whether six principal institutes have more clout together or separately.

'The pope is right to denounce tax evasion,' one reader writes on The Times site. 'Wealth is fine as long as it is made honestly.'
Richard Murphy on his blog offers: ' I do not think that because the Pope says something it has to be right. But few can deny the power or importance of the tradition of Catholic social teaching, especially on issues such as this (where the Catholic Church is ahead of all others). This news is, therefore, very welcome and is indicative the changing environment worldwide on this issue.'
My favourite is from BurmaShave on The LibertyPost. Commenting on the Pope's apparent call to 'the West to promote an equitable world economic system based on social justice rather than profi', BurmaShave says: 'I hope my offering in the basket last Sunday goes towards purchasing a book on microeconomics for the Pope.'

Fearnley's book Behind Closed Doors: What Company Audit is Really About - written with University of Portsmouth colleague Richard Brandt and Professor Vivien Beattie of the University of Glasgow - is based on interviews with the finance directors of six UK listed companies and the audit engagement partners who conducted the audits.
Sponsored by the ICAEW, and published in 2001 (these awards aren't given out quickly are they) the book looked at the motivations of the parties in an audit, the relationship between the auditor and client, the contextual factors that influence an audit and strategies that are adopted.
I've not read it (something I intend to redress) but I understand a follow-up is planned, again with funding from the ICAEW.
Behind Closed Doors post Enron should be completed by 2009 and will look at the impact of recent regulatory change and on at whether the interactions between auditors and directors (and the integrity of the reporting process) have changed. Comparing the two should be fascinating. 

'CPAs are the kind of fearless leaders and creative problem-solvers that can really "make things happen",' the  site argues. 'Like helping to solve high-profile fraud cases in court. Or lending a hand in protecting the environment.'

Under career options it offers 'forensic accounting with the FBI' as a possibility and it goes heavy on the cars you might end up driving - paid for by a a salary that's 'pretty hard to beat'.

Did I mention games? 'The Case of the California Con puts you in the role of a forensic accountant' and  has a very nowish computer game feel to it. 'Do you have what it takes to be top dog?' asks another. 'Claw, scrape and work your way up the corporate ladder'.

It's a very snazzy site. And it will be interesting to see whether it is sucessful in attracting school-leavers into the profession.

After all if Man United can sign a nine year old why shouldn't the accountancy profession seek to grab them younger?