In the world of public sector "investment promotion", some of the money that is taken from businesses in taxes is spent on persuading them to invest again (so as to be taxed again).

I hasten to stress that Manchester is by no means the worst culprit. You should see the scale of the "marketing" efforts of London, Paris and some Russian cities you will never have heard of. The Manchester yacht, for all I know, may well be at least partly sponsored by private companies.

Still, I thought Manchester's council tax payers might like to see where some of their city's public servants are this week.