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Accounting is problematically shaped by a culture of spin. In the practice of accounting, presentational management risks assuming greater importance than an open and clear communication motivated by a concern to serve the public interest. We elaborate upon this problematic feature of contemporary practice and suggest pointers towards responding to the challenge it poses in terms of a better way for accounting in the new millennium.

We elaborate an imminent critique of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), critically exploring its claim to serve the public interest by reference to its character and position, its official principles and its work vis-agrave;-vis campaigns to disaggregate accounting focused on extractive industries and operating segments. We raise issues about the institution and its rhetoric and indicate that it does not straightforwardly apply its principles. Unable to abstract from its socio-political context, its accounting prescriptions intertwine with concerns to inform democracy and a related politics of accounting disaggregation. We attempt a rescuing critique, indicating IASB's potential to better serve the public interest.

This paper focuses upon concerns to regulate the turnpike trusts in early nineteenth century Britain. The focus is particularly upon the perceptions of accounting and how accounting is mobilised in this context. Through analysis of parliamentary debates, laws governing turnpike trusts and parliamentary committee deliberations over the management of turnpikes an attempt is made to bring out the sense in which the concerns involved are reflective of more general developments taking place at that time in England and Wales. We particularly focus here upon the move to introduce principles of management governed by a scientific reasoning in the focus of turnpike administration and upon the controversy over attempts of the state to intervene and control what were perceived to be matters of local consideration.