One of these suggested that one problem that Whitehead Mann may be coming

One of these suggested that one problem that Whitehead Mann may be coming up against, as the market leader, is that many potential candidates who it could put up for a job are “off limits” because Whitehead Mann works for the business that employs that person. That means, for instance, that if Whitehead Mann already works for Sainsbury’s, it could not recommend any Sainsbury’s employee if it were asked to find someone for Tesco.”You cannot poach where you already have a client relationship. Whitehead Mann already works for many of the larger companies in each sector so scale has become a limiting issue,” the rival said.The trend is for professional services firms to go global, led by the big accountancy practices. Leading headhunters have followed and some of Whitehead Mann’s key competitors – Heidrick & Struggles and Korn/Ferry – already have a large global network.

Whitehead Mann’s UK business remains a potent force but its global ambitions have had to be reined in.. * With or without Alastair Campbell at its helm, the Downing Street press office takes a hard line against stories that it happens to find inconvenient. “The black people carrier brushed against her at high speed, knocking her crutches from under her.”When asked about the matter, Tony Blair’s spokesman went on the offensive. “We regret that Zeynab was frightened, but the Prime Minister did not travel in a people carrier at the conference,”she said. “It must have been someone else.”Yesterday, however, freelance journalist Lee Gordon got in touch. He was with Zeynab at the time of the incident, recording a video-diary of her trip to the conference.Apparently, she was knocked over by a car in Blair’s convoy, though not necessarily the PM’s own car.

And what is more, Gordon caught the whole thing on camera.Yesterday, despite the new evidence, Downing Street wasn’t returning my calls.* IN RECENT times, Rosamund Pike has attracted more suitors than the heroine of a Jane Austen bodice-ripper.Having ditched her longstanding boyfriend Simon Woods, Pike enjoyed a summer romance with a budding artist, Henry John.That came to an end a week or two back, and now the porcelain-skinned beauty has found love on the set of her new film, which (appropriately enough) is a Working Title version of Pride and Prejudice .”No sooner had I heard about Henry and Ros than she’s run off with someone on the set of P&P ,” says a chum. “We’ve not been told his name yet, but apparently he’s pretty famous.”Contenders, therefore, include Pike’s co-star Tom Hollander and her director, Joe Wright.Woods is also in the film, but can be ruled out of calculations: he “came out” after splitting from Pike, and is now dating a young man called Nick.* GURINDER CHADHA’S new flick Bride and Prejudice – touted as the first mainstream Bollywood movie – is the subject of a press pack distributed to journalists at recent screenings.Unfortunately, the goon who wrote it had an over-zealous spellchecker, which didn’t recognise the word Bollywood.”Every time it appears in my release, it’s been replaced by ‘Hollywood’,” I’m told.Chadha’s release therefore notes: “Hollywood dominates Indian film production … In Hollywood, there’s simply no kissing – it’s heavily frowned upon by the Indian censors,” and (most splendidly) “Hollywood is an equivalent industry to Hollywood”.* SHEKHAR KAPUR will tonight talk with Barry Norman at a fundraiser for the Jaisalmer in Jeopardy appeal.In order to attend the event at the V&A, the lofty film director has been flown in from Mumbai in some style.There is bad feeling over this, and the Asian lifestyle magazine Another Generation (originally planning to donate free copies to guests at the bash) has withdrawn its support. “I feel the travel expense could be spent on better things,” says its editor.

“I supported the event last year, but I won’t this time.”Organisers say Kapur’s ticket was supplied by sponsors, and did not cost the charity a penny. An ugly row, all the same.* For Pandora, crossing swords with a celebrity is part of a day’s work For the rest of you, it’s a rare challenge. So I’ve put a bottle of champagne on ice for a reader able to hold two of my “betters” to account.On 18 October, Cancer Research UK holds a “turn the tables” lunch at the Savoy, at which two eminent politicians – Oliver Letwin and Diane Abbott – will interview Sir Trevor McDonald and Edward Stourton.Being (relative) novices at this sort of thing, Letwin and Abbott require a helping hand, and would like you to think up a “killer question” for them.Suggestions can be e-mailed or posted to the usual address. A bottle of Dom Perignon 1996 awaits the reader responsible for the best entry.pandora independent.co.uk. Trace amounts of industrial chemicals have been found in the blood of children in a study carried out by the environmental pressure group WWF (World Wildlife Fund). “The contamination of three generations of families, including children as young as nine, with hazardous man-made chemicals clearly illustrates that industry and government have failed to control these chemicals.”WWF analysed the blood of 33 people from seven families to look for 105 industrial chemicals such as brominated flame-retardants used in television sets and perfluorinated chemicals used in non-stick frying pans.But although analysis detected 80 of these chemicals, they were present in extremely low levels – measured in parts per billion – well below the thresholds where they are likely to cause immediate harm, according to Professor John Henry, a leading toxicologist at Imperial College, London.He said: “The bottom line is that evidence of presence is not evidence of harm. It’s good that we know these things and that someone is alerting us to them, but it’s no good doing so in an alarmist fashion.”An earlier survey of 155 people carried out by the WWF concluded that many people are contaminated by a cocktail of man-made chemicals which WWF said could be hazardous to long-term health.The latest study investigated whether there were any chemical differences between the three generations within a family.