U.K. politician curses Starbucks founder - hear, hear!

Lord Peter Mandelson, the pugnacious U.K. business secretary, is stirring up trouble on this side of the Atlantic.

Mandelson, in the U.S. to promote trade, dropped the "F bomb" in front of a group of journalists at a party at the home of the British counsel-general in New York. Seems he was incensed about remarks Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Howard Schultz made on the state of the British economy on CNBC. Schultz said he was worried about the economy in Europe, and that the U.K. "is in a spiral."

"The UK is not spiraling, although I've noticed Starbucks is in a great deal of trouble -- but that might be because of their over-expansion given the state of the market," Mandelson is quoted by the Daily Mail newspaper as saying. More colorfully, he also said, "Who the **** is he? How the hell are they doing?"