The dastardly Mr Deedes
Financial Conduct Authority boss Andrew Bailey, 58, is seen as the likely choice for the Bank of England Governorship when Mark Carney’s successor is announced later this year. Any obstacles in his way? My man in the pink tailcoat whispers: ‘Just one. Previous governors have had a PhD in economics. Bailey’s doctorate is in economic history. Mandarins are sniffy about this sort of thing.’ Interestingly, bookies have installed as favourite deputy governor Sir Dave Ramsden, 53, a modest ex-civil servant who some Treasury colleagues say has much to be modest about. More misery for Markus Jooste, 56, South African chief of Poundland owner Steinhoff who’s quit amid an investigation into financial irregularities. His racehorse Legal Eagle has triumphed in Cape Town’s prestigious Grade 1 race the Queen’s Plate, weeks after his financial woes forced him to sell it for £190,000. Beleaguered Jooste’s fall from grace, I am told, remains gleefully discussed among the Cape’s waspish glitterati. The appointment of former City lawyer David Gauke as Lord Chancellor makes him the first legally qualified MP to yank on the ceremonial tights in five years. Presumably that’s a cause for celebration among the legal industry. Not quite. Lantern-jawed Gauke, 46, wants rid of the Human Rights Act, which has been keeping money-grubbing lawyers in silk stockings for years. Deutsche Bank’s £5.2m-a-year Fuhrer John Cryan’s future is the subject of fevered speculation after he admitted the troubled bank is likely to report a loss this year. His replacement will likely be a straight shoot-out between Deutsche’s whippet-thin investment banking chief, icily named Dr Marcus Schenck, 52, and commercial banking head Christian Sewing, 47, depending on who’s performed better. Sounds a proper nest of vipers. Goldman Sachs employees are complaining of suffering from ‘investment banker’s neck’, an arthritis doctors say is caused by spending hours gawping at computer monitors. Handily, Goldman keeps an array of medical staff in-house, including a dermatologist, a gynaecologist and an orthopaedist, to spare its hard-ridden workforce time-consuming trips to the clinic.