Whatever about Eircom's chances of winning a vote of confidence from its small shareholders, I wouldn't give much for the chances of the London Stock Exchange pulling off the same miracle.

A bad week all round for the LSE was crowned yesterday by the resignation of chief executive Gavin Casey, who was ousted on a show of hands at the exchange's annual meeting only to be reprieved when a secret ballot went his way by the thinnest of margins.

Little joy either for chairman Don Cruickshank who, although voted into office on a floor vote, couldn't even elicit a "hear, hear" to his rallying call to members as they confronted threats to the exchange's independence on all sides.

Having pulled out of the increasingly unpopular merger plan with the Deutsche Borse to clear the decks for a battle with Swedish upstart OM Group, the 200-year-old exchange must now hope it can better meet the challenges ahead than it has those in the recent past.