The dastardly Mr Deedes

Public relations firm Bell Pottinger was targeted yesterday by anti-fracking campaigners Reclaim The Power, who were angry about the company’s association with energy firm Cuadrilla. Protesters dressed as animals apparently ‘threw leaves, spread manure and sprayed squid ink’ in the lobby of the firm’s Holborn offices. Wouldn’t their cause would be better served by reasoned debate than puerile stunts? Bell Pottinger spinners might wish to advise. Billionaire US financier Steve Cohen is to auction a painting by Jean-Michele Basquiat, called La Hara, at Christie’s next month, which could fetch as much as £22m. Mere folding money to dome-headed Cohen, 60, (no oil painting himself, I fear) whose formidable art collection is worth around £800m. He paid Charles Saatchi £6.4m for Damien Hirst’s ridiculous embalmed shark in 2004, which he had to repair at a cost of £54,000 after it began to rot. Goldman Sachs’s London-based head of foreign exchange derivatives, Manikandan Natarajan, is to retire. As a Goldman partner, Indian-born Natarajan will have earned an annual seven-figure remuneration to last him through his dotage. If that’s not enough to make the molars grind, try this: the jammy rascal has barely turned 38. Last night’s Panorama raised the tantalising prospect of ex-Barclays chief Bob Diamond being summoned to appear again in front of the Treasury Select Committee over his role in the Libor scandal. His last appearance in 2011 was not a success. He irritated MPs by addressing them by their first names in a misplaced attempt to be chummy. Word was he’d received serpentine advice from Lord Mandelson. The mega-merger between City law firms CMS, Nabarro and Olswang is due to complete next month. Due to ongoing ‘synergies’, the firms have offered all 46 trainees arriving in September £10,000 to defer their start date for six months. Only half the influx have agreed to this bite-your-hand-off proposition. Students don’t know they’re born, do they?