MERGERS can be a messy business. The idea is to present a united face to the world, a smooth visage of serene unity and common purpose.

But behind the scenes there’s frequently blood on the floor as personal empires clash, power tussles are played out and everyone’s jockeying for position in the new order.

The tortuous path taken to tie up Business Southampton and the chamber is the latest evidence of the difficulties of making a forced marriage work.

To start with, most of the senior players here would really rather you didn’t call it a merger at all and they’re going though extravagant linguistic hoops to avoid saying the ‘M’ word.

There’s talk of “Boards in Common” or a “Common Executive Committee”, which it’s difficult to see as anything other than a cute device designed to blur the real intent.

Never one to shuffle semantics, Southampton chamber boss captain Jimmy Chestnutt has been admirably direct about his desire to see a plain old merger throughout.

What is by now pretty clear is that the chamber, which is in the merger mood having just swallowed its two county counterparts, broadly welcomes the idea. Despite the current national vogue for coalitions, Business Southampton’s board remains deeply divided over the issue.

Officially the idea is to give Southampton a unified business voice. It’s a laudable aim: together we are stronger, sort of thing.

But it’s just as true to say the main motivation is a simple matter of money.

A small number of big players in the city are fed up of paying to be members of both groups and are using all their weight behind the scenes to push through a merger.

But is that what Southampton needs?

It’s worth remembering why Business Southampton was created in the first place.

It was born out of sheer frustration at the lack of progress in Southampton, the myopic vision and political leadership more Captain Mainwaring than Field Marshal Montgomery. So, business decided to do it for itself –Business Southampton was the result.

No one is suggesting the job is done. So, the question for those of us without a financial axe to grind is simply: will it be more or less effective as part of the chamber?

I have no idea, but the whole business has more than the whiff of cost cutting about it, which you may think is no bad thing in this new age of austerity. Also, as the chamber becomes a county-wide body, there’s a real danger that under a merger Business Southampton would be perceived as just its local face, undermining the reason for its existence.

What is undoubtedly true is that the whole thing has dragged on for two years or so and the uncertainty and backroom bad feeling is doing no one any favours.

It’s a chewy one and, remarkably, something the Spice Girls wrestled with in their hit Two Become One. There, in a prescient message, Sporty, Posh et al said: “A dream of you and me together; Say you believe it, say you believe it; Silly games that you were playing Empty words we both were saying Let's work it out boy, let's work it out”

Quite.