The dastardly Mr Deedes
Former BBC reporter Stephanie Flanders is quitting her £400,000 analyst role with JP Morgan to work for Bloomberg, according to friends, because she misses journalism. Clever clogs Stephanie, 48, will need to adhere to Bloomberg’s famed commitment to impartiality. At the BBC, some detected a whiff of hostility towards David Cameron’s government. Former Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith once accused her of ‘peeing all over’ British business.
Re JP Morgan, the bank’s enduring chief executive Jamie Dimon says the number of technology workers now required means staff numbers will increase, remarking: ‘My guess is our headcount will go up over the next 20 years, not down.’ Does Dimon, 61, have a big tech hire in mind? He was spotted lunching last weekend with Travis Kalanick, 40, the unlovely ex-Uber boss who’s resigned following a string of scandals.
Royal Bank of Scotland’s self-aggrandising chairman Sir Howard Davies complains to Management Today readers how long it is taking to build an airport in Berlin. He writes: ‘Since 2012, there have been quite unbelievable shenanigans, including a poisoned whistleblower and more resignations and firings than even our government can manage.’ Sounds no more shambolic than the situation at still stateowned RBS.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement that she was abandoning a second referendum meant cancelling her keynote speech to the Association of British Insurers yesterday. So Sturgeon dispatched her Brexit minister, a bearded irrelevance called Michael Russell, as her replacement. Would an insurance firm get away with such a short-changed settlement?
Linklaters, the magic circle law firm where even newly qualified lawyers can expect to earn £90,000, has set up an Instagram account for its ritzy staff canteen. The sumptuous fare on offer wouldn’t be out of place in a Michelin- starred restaurant. Fresh salmon, choice cuts of expensively reared beef, ice buckets filled with Laurent Perrier champagne. A far cry from Horace Rumpole’s humble Chancery Lane lunches of meat pie and sub-par claret – or Chateau Thames Embankment, as he referred to it.