The dastardly Mr Deedes
Isn’t it time the Treasury Select Committee began charging for entrance to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s tussles with Bank of England governor Mark Carney? Following comments from Carney’s underling Andy Haldane that economists had suffered a ‘Michael Fish moment’ in misjudging Brexit – a reference to the BBC weatherman who failed to forecast the 1987 hurricane – the Moggster teased: ‘Mr Fish’s boss eventually apologised 20- odd years later. So perhaps we’ll see you again in 2040.’ The suave and composed governor momentarily looked like he was gnawing a wasp.
Tweedy HSBC chairman Douglas Flint and ex-Treasury geek Danny Alexander were guest speakers at a Hong Kong Association event in London’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel yesterday. The cost of attendance: £ 80. Up for discussion: Infrastructure and trade initiatives in the Far East. ‘Seriously strong coffee required to make it through to the end of this one,’ sighed one unkind guest.
Preener of the month goes to the mophaired Capita chairman and former £3.7m-a-year PricewaterhouseCoopers boss Ian Powell. Within 24 hours of his knighthood being announced in the New Year’s Honours, the vain booby, 59, filed notice with Companies House to appear on documents as Sir Ian Powell.
Conde Nast’s sociable £1.3m-a-year managing director Nicholas Coleridge, 60, is standing down after 26 years at the publisher. Success has smiled on the Coleridge clan. Younger brothers Tim and Chris have both forged successful careers in the City. Nicholas’s father David, 84, is the formidable ex-chairman of Lloyd’s of London. He once archly observed his eldest son had ‘done well but in a very limited, small field’.
Brokerage firm Killik has issued a buy note to clients on Imperial Tobacco. The memo advises that Imperial’s redoubtable, £5.5m-a-year chief executive Alison Cooper ‘is a 50-year-old mother-of-two who smokes cigars’. A tad superfluous? Perhaps when Killik next issues a buy note on Lloyds, it will mention that the ailing bank’s £8.5ma-year chief, Antonio Horta-Osorio, ‘is a wolfish father-of-three who enjoys wine, women and song’.
Have you any gossip for our City diary? Email: mrdeedes@dailymail.co.uk