Yet for all the legal and accounting gobbledygook with which Mr Armstrong surrounded his announcement, and for all his insistence that the new firms will still be able to co-operate closely and do lots of the bundling that he still yearns for, what is happening is certainly big and should benefit shareholders.

ECONOMIST: Ma Bell does the splits | The

To do this, co-operation with others may be necessary, and we should not flinch from it - after all, we have spent decades opposing tribal politics and saying that parties should co-operate more.

BBC: Charles Kennedy: A party of government