Entrepreneurship

'Katie Price tops entrepreneur poll’ exclaimed a press release that landed in our inbox this morning, going on to explain that the 30-year-old ‘model businesswoman’ received more votes than Stelios, Oprah Winfrey and Anita Roddick when the 170,000 members of social networking site BT Tradespace were asked to nominate the world’s most admired entrepreneurs. ‘She has been very skilful in marketing herself through the Jordan brand and then re-inventing herself as a go-getting businesswoman,’ points out Tradespace director Jennifer Mowat.

Except that she didn’t actually top the poll at all. On closer inspection, we discovered that Katie had in fact come fourth, behind Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates and (strangely enough) Peter Jones, the lanky one off Dragons Den. Oh, and Sir Alan Sugar tied for fourth too. So when they said ‘tops poll’, they actually meant ‘tops poll apart from three other people and another bloke who got the same number of votes.’ Easy mistake to make... 

So if you’re feeling outraged about our blatantly misleading headline, rest assured that we were only trying to help you feel our pain (as opposed to trying exactly the same cheap trick that the PR people successfully used on us).

This is nothing against Katie herself, you understand. Here at MT we’re unstinting in our admiration of someone who has managed to transform herself from obscure glamour model into one of Britain’s richest and most famous people, despite having no particular talents (apart from self-promotion, perhaps). She’s now churning out novels, perfume, lingerie, hair products, TV shows… And she’s done all this while raising three children (that’s Harvey, Princess Tiaami and Junior of course) and putting up with Peter Andre. She’s an inspiration to us all.

Of course, you might argue that this doesn’t necessarily mean that her achievements should be ranked above the likes of Sir Stelios – who did, after all, transform his chosen industry and create thousands of jobs. But if he will keep turning down those invitations to go on ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’, he’s only got himself to blame...

In today's bulletin:
House price falls hit double figures
M&S whistleblower hauled across the coals
Microsoft goes private in browser wars
UK firms lacking bouncebackability
Jordan is Britain's top entrepreneur