What a day of contrasts, a day in which the tale of two Britain’s was laid out so starkly: one of corporate brilliance and one of Westminster pantomime.   

In the business world, the UK’s mighty GlaxoSmithKline launched a daring plan to form a new ÂŁ10bn consumer healthcare joint venture with its drugs rival, the US-based Pfizer. That’s just the first stage of the deal. The next bit will be to hive off the new consumer healthcare business – in which GSK has a majority stake with 68% of the equity – in three years time, creating a new business which would then be spun off.