The dastardly Mr Deedes

Lloyds’s £5.5m-a-year chief Antonio Horta Osorio says he wants to use his experience of stress-related insomnia to help tackle the stigma of mental health. Having steered Lloyds out of public ownership, Antonio’s image rehabilitation since his dalliance with sexy bluestocking Wendy Piatt is going well isn’t it? Some suggest the copper-skinned smoothie, 53 – who has taken British citizenship – might be in line for a Knighthood. Let’s hope his iffy handling of the HBOS Reading fraud, where bankers carried out a £245m loan fraud, hasn’t scuppered his chances.

Former Scottish Nationalist MP George Kerevan wants to be the next Chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority when its £193,000-a-year incumbent, John Griffith-Jones, steps down in February. Kerevan, 68, who sat on the Treasury Select Committee until he was booted from his East Lothian seat at the general election, claims the regulator is suffering a ‘major crisis of public confidence’. Oh, and surprisingly, he’s offering to do the job for free.

Re: pay. Former HSBC director Rona Fairhead – now Baroness Fairhead, if you please – won’t be paid for her new role as Trade Minister. Still, best keep a close eye on her outgoings. While chief executive at the Financial Times, her office was so lavishly decorated colleagues referred to her as ‘Rona Overhead’.

Brylcreemed hedge fund wally Anthony Scaramucci, 53, who lasted a grand total of ten days as Donald Trump’s hapless White House communications chief, will address both the Oxford and Cambridge unions next week. Says the Mooch: ‘It’s a huge honour to walk in the footsteps of Gandhi and Churchill.’ Indeed so. And bazooka-breasted glamour model Katie Price, he might have added.

Tory peer Baroness Harding, 49, whose seven-year tenure of TalkTalk coincided with the theft of data from 156,000 customers, has been appointed chairman of watchdog NHS Improvement. Her appointment was not well received by still furious TalkTalk customers on the Twittersphere yesterday. Rages one: ‘We’re all doomed!’

Have you any gossip for our City diary? Email: mrdeedes@dailymail.co.uk