The dastardly Mr Deedes

Princely Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam has issued a statement smoothly denying he’s standing for president in his native Cote D’Ivoire in 2020. Personally, I wasn’t aware of any reports connecting £7m-a-year Tidjane, 55, to the presidency. But a public rebuttal is certainly a neat way of delivering flattering rumours to a wider audience. Former Talk Talk boss Dido Harding – Baroness Harding of Winscombe, if you please – has joined the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit. Agency JLA lists her as one of their ‘A’ grade speakers, meaning she can charge as much as £25,000 a time. Perhaps pixie-like Dido, 50, will trot out a few thigh-slappers about the time 157,000 of her customers’ data got hacked. With Mark Carney now almost certain to remain as Governor until 2020, there’s fresh speculation the Treasury may use the time to secure another global big hitter as his successor. Suave Indian central banker Raghuram Rajan is suggested. So is super-wealthy Allianz economist Mohamed el-erian, 60, whose ex-wife, former deputy governor Dame Minouche Shafik, is also likely to be on the Treasury’s longlist. Incidentally, I notice redoubtable Dame Minouche, 56, omits their brief union from her Who’s Who entry. Parisian fashion house Nina Ricci won’t be happy at news Russian agents used a fake bottle of one its scents to smuggle deadly Novichok poison into the UK. The brand has ridden out public relations mishaps before. In 2015, one of their fashion shows was hijacked by bare-breasted protesters from Femen, a Ukranian feminist group who were protesting against the sex slave industry. Elfin model Hollie-May Saker, 23, demonstrated her Liverpudlian grit by socking one of the catwalk invaders in the face. Fresh from his latest DJ-ing appearance in The hamptons, Goldman Sachs’s incoming boss David Solomon is set to appoint head of investment banking John Waldron as his number two. Preppy-looking Waldron, 49, an active Republican backer, is currently advising the Murdoch family on Fox’s sale to Disney. he and 21st Century Fox chief James Murdoch, 45, are said to be bros. They often go skiing together.