You’ve got to hand it to David Thomlinson, UK managing director of Accenture. Interviewed in Accountancy Age last week, not only did he talk up the firm’s prospects after a bit poor trading (‘Yeah, I’m very confident on our current trajectory that we are back into a growth position’), but he laid into the Big Four consultancies too.

He said Accenture had ‘much greater breadth and depth. It’s not just based around providing advice and reports.’ Accountancy Age ran the story on the front page under the headline, ‘Consultants dismiss Big Four challenge.’

That must have stung the Big Four consultancy guys. In fact I know it did. I bumped into one at the weekend who said: ‘Nice story on the front page – Accenture says we’re rubbish. Cheek!’ then he stalked off. Guess Thomlinson got the reaction he wanted.