The dastardly Mr Deedes

Preening ex-BP supremo and ‘people’s peer’ Lord Browne is an exotic bird of rare plumage. Elegantly coiffed hair. Immaculately-cut suiting from Savile Row. His handmade shoes always buffed to a high polish. But monotone bosses during his early years at BP were less appreciative of his lordship’s rococo grandeur. Says Browne, 68: ‘I once turned up to work wearing a striped shirt and my boss said, ‘You forgot to take your pyjamas off, then?’ Frustrated by low pay or fretting about the knock-on effects of George Osborne’s living wage? It’s not all doom and gloom. City law firm Freshfields are upping salaries for newly-qualified lawyers, barely into their mid-20s usually, by 25pc. That means a starting salary of £85,000. Was Mark Twain exaggerating when he once said ‘the mere title of lawyer is enough to deprive a man of public confidence’? No sign of urbane Ministry of Sound tycoon Lord (Jamie) Palumbo at his sister Petra’s wedding last weekend to clan chief Lord Lovat, 38, a commodities analyst at Carmignac Gestion. Palumbo, 52, who looks more like an European princeling than a nightclub boss, has barely uttered a word to his father, property grandee Lord (Peter) Palumbo, 80, for 30 years following a row over family trusts. A sad state of affairs. Jamie once described his old man as ‘one of the world’s greatest bores.’ Who could doubt him? Rapacious US private equity firm the Carlyle Group faces a revolt from Londonbased minicab firm Addison Lee over pay and working hours imposed since it purchased the firm in 2013. Angry Addison Lee drivers plan to blockade Carlyle’s London offices in busy Berkeley Square on Thursday in a bid to cause its owners maximum embarrassment. Doubtless Carlyle’s fat cat bosses – ex-board members include Sir John Major and George Bush snr – will take the adverse publicity on the chin. The firm was famously demonised by Michael Moore’s 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 over its unsavoury links to the US defence industry. Do the eggheads over at HM Treasury suffer delusions of grandeur? During IMF saucepot Christine Lagarde’s recent press conference in its Whitehall building, I noticed two WiFi portals for civil servants’ use. They named them ‘Cavalry’ and ‘Infantry.’