Taking Stock - Mitchell obviously has no vested interests.

TS is always flattered to see Accountancy Age mentioned in parliament. Our cannabis coverage, for instance, exercised the mind of many a Lord recently.

And so with the Insolvency Bill currently winding its way uncertainly along the legislative path we thought we might benefit from another mention given the column inches we have devoted to the thorny issue.

And one MP was willing to oblige last week. Step forward Labour’s Austin Mitchell, that longstanding scourge of vested interests in the profession.

Mitchell referred to an article in Accountancy Age warning that MPs on the Bill committee are on course for an ‘Insolvency Bill Clash’.

In typically forthright fashion he said the article’s highlighting of concerns among insolvency practitioners showed a concern ‘for vested interests’.

But Mitchell was not finished there.

He then launched an attack on Accountancy Age as ‘the journal that used to be a critical voice in the profession, but which, to encourage advertising, especially from the big six (sic), became the voice of the vested interests’.

Dare we point out that Mitchell was recently relieved of his duties as an Accountancy Age columnist?

No hint of vested interests there, then.