The dastardle Mr Deedes
tributes for BP’s stately ex-chairman Peter Sutherland, who has died aged 71, have ranged from Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar to rackety eU president Jean claude- Juncker. But not a dicky bird as yet – on twitter or otherwise – from BP’s flamboyant ex-chief executive, Lord Browne, 69, with whom he enjoyed a testing relationship. Despite a decade working together, Sutherland didn’t warrant even a single mention in Browne’s 2011 autobiography. Moneybags City lawyer Charles Randell, 59, whose firm Slaughter & May billed the Treasury £32m during the 2008 banking bail-out, told an interviewer in 2008 that in ten years’ time he planned to be ‘on board my boat, cruising the coasts of the British Isles and France without a Blackberry’. So why has he agreed to be chairman of the boring Financial Conduct Authority? A selfless sense of civic duty no doubt. And should an offer to upgrade his CBE to a knighthood crop up, all the better. thrice-bankrupt BhS owner Dominic chappell, in court for failing to hand over information to the pension regulator, was refused permission by the judge yesterday to sit with his legal team. Does pudgy, man-ofall talents Dominic, 51, now purport to be a hot-shot legal wiz? We mustn’t rule it out. he informed one business associate he was previously in the ‘helicopter squad’ of the SaS. Royal Bank of Scotland’s £748,000–ayear chairman Sir Howard Davies has postponed a media drinks reception he was due to host in two weeks’ time until
March. Davies, 71, explains: ‘It was clear that the original date was not convenient.’ Indeed not. What good is a drinks party to us hacks doing Dry January?
Does Facebook executive rachel Whetstone need to muzzle her husband, scruffy ex-Downing Street adviser Steve hilton? Goblin-like hilton, 48, indiscreetly told Fox News viewers on Sunday: ‘David cameron once described President obama as one of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed people he’d ever dealt with.’ Somehow I doubt this scintillating revelation will be included in Dave’s forthcoming memoirs. Have you any gossip for our City diary? Email: mrdeedes@dailymail.co.uk