UK's Barclays snatch jobs back from India

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">LONDON: The potential new owners of Britain''s best-selling, most conservative newspaper may have already begun batting for England as they bring 250 call centre jobs back from Bangalore to the British Isles.<br /><br />The media-shy Barclay brothers bid late last week for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Daily Telegraph</span>, which is described as the voice, pulse and heart of middle England.<br /><br />Almost exactly one week on, in an announcement expected to enthuse wide swathes of England, Wales and Scotland and thus all of the British Isles, the brothers'' spokeswoman Katya Reynier confirmed to TNN: "Yes, it''s true they''ve decided to end the India trial...but no one has said it''s a cultural thing or anything".<br /><br />The Bangalore call centre served a company called Shop Direct, formerly Great Universal Stores (GUS) Home Shopping for nearly two years. GUS, the giant of British catalogue shopping, was bought by Sir David and Fredrick Barclay in May last year. <br /><br />The Bangalore workers will spend their last day in the service of the Barclays at the end of February.<br /><br />Late on Thursday, Britain''s trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt told parliament the good news that call centre jobs were actually being brought back to Britain from India.<br /><br />Observers said the swiftness of the announcement could indicate the Barclays were keen to cash in on a ''British and proud of it'' corporate branding that would play well with middle England and help their attempts to become one of the most influential pair of media moghuls in the western hemisphere.<br /><br />But a defensive Reynier said: "I can see why people could say that, but ultimately the Barclays are businessmen and the figures have got to add up".<br /><br /><formid=367815><br /><br /></formid=367815></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">She said the Bangalore call centre was not for a traditional catalogue-shopping service, but "for people who might not be able to get credit, so there was an extra layer there and the new owners felt that side of things was not going well in India".<br /><br />But many believe there will be a considerable knock-on political effect of the Barclays'' retrenchment of Indian call centre jobs.<br /><br />The Barclays, who have so far maintained a very stiff-upper-lip reticence about their private lives, preoccupations and passions, are known to be Euro-skeptic in the best traditions of British resistance to the single European currency. <br /><br />Worth an estimated 650 million pounds, they live in a medieval-style granite fortress on the tiny island of Brecqhou, off southwest England, in what many have described as a typically British, very eccentric devotion to the philosophy that an Englishman''s home is his castle.<br /><br />While the Barclays are known to be confident about their successful bid for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Daily Telegraph</span>, the Blair government could still put a spoke in their wheel by raising concerns about media monopolies, unfair competition and public service interest.<br /><br />The multi-millionaire brothers, who own another jewel in the English crown, the London Ritz Hotel, also own <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Scotsman</span> group of newspapers. <br /><br />On Friday, Reynier said the Bangalore call centre had always been a ''trial'' set up by the company''s previous owners but now the ''new owners decided to end it because they felt it was a bit more complicated than simply tracking (a catalogue-bought product)''. <br /><br />The efficiency and wage savings of going to India never did add up she said.<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>