The dastardly Mr Deedes
ineos billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s entertaining High court battle with Agent Provocateur founder Joe corre attracts another colourful cast member. corre, 49, who’s trying to overturn an injunction banning protests against ineos’s fracking operations, has hired human rights barrister Jennifer Robinson, 36, a publicity-prone Aussie who’s represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. She was also the honey blonde snapped in July canoodlin’ with Labour’s equally creepy communications director, Seumas Milne. Should the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee raise interest rates today, the only member of the panel who was in the room the last time they were increased is deputy governor Sir David Ramsden. That was back in 2007, just weeks before the collapse of Northern Rock. Interestingly, ex-Treasury mandarin ‘Dave’, 53, also feels the most jittery about a rates hike. Royal Bank of Scotland’s self-regarding chairman, Sir Howard davies, demands that a council of ‘wise people’ be appointed to negotiate post-Brexit banking regulations on behalf of the city, and preferably it will have a ‘Francophone, ex-central banker’ as its chairman. does French-speaking Sir Howard, 66, an ex-deputy governor of the Bank of England, have anyone particular in mind? Partners at management consultants McKinsey gathered at the Grosvenor House hotel last week to begin nominating a successor to their boss, lofty Canadian Dominic Barton, 55, who steps down in June. The secretive process is a bit like choosing the Pope. No lobbying. Partners vote for their choice and a winner is whittled down by three ballots. A welcome distraction, no doubt, from the firm’s travails in South Africa, where it benefited from links to the Gupta brothers. My story about Financial conduct Authority staff being allowed taxis home after 9pm due to security concerns over their new Stratford offices bemuses workers at transport for London. Writes one: ‘our offices are next door and we don’t get cabs when working late. Guess we’ll just have to take our chances walking through the busy, well-lit, cctV-covered shopping centre to the station, like everyone else.’