There could turn out to be limits to the cosiness between the two industries after all.

ECONOMIST: Video games

They go along with most of Mr Rubin's ideas, reinforcing the mood of bipartisan cosiness.

ECONOMIST: The Steve Forbes drum-beat

The dominant model, in which the bond issuer pays the rater directly, encouraged cosiness between the two.

ECONOMIST: Reforming finance: Rating agencies

The most striking deals have involved Pfizer, a conservative giant not known for cosiness with upstart generics firms.

ECONOMIST: Big drug firms embrace generics

Given the cosiness between Italian politicians and banks, bondholders fret that local outfits will get preferential treatment in the restructuring.

ECONOMIST: Parmalat

Politically, the bluff cosiness of the Macmillan government was a perfect target.

ECONOMIST: Political satire

The main concern about Mr Brown, however, is his cosiness with unions, who have been running their own attack ads against Ms Whitman.

ECONOMIST: The California governor's race

Such cosiness would have been impossible a few months ago.

ECONOMIST: Moi��s coup | The

Perhaps most seriously, there is Mr Chernomyrdin's cosiness with Gazprom, the country's most powerful company, which he used to run and which thrived, lightly taxed, under his prime ministership.

ECONOMIST: Viktor Chernomyrdin, student of survival | The

Wall Street's intellectual and political clout is considerable, and financial firms make far bigger campaign donations than any other industry in America, resulting in an unusual cosiness between financiers and Washington's policy elite.

ECONOMIST: The financial crisis and the future of regulation

In the Commons, three chairs of select committees have cut a particular dash: Natascha Engel has plotted a course for the Backbench Business Committee between the twin dangers of establishment cosiness and hyper-confrontational posturing.

BBC: Who's shone?