The dastardly Mr Deedes
Lloyds’ £5.5m-a-year boss Antonio Horta-Osorio met Prince Charles for a friendly pow-wow at Clarence House this week. Lisbon-born Antonio, 53, who has successfully steered Lloyds back into private ownership, is a big supporter of The Prince’s Countryside Fund, which helps struggling farmers. Doubtless HRH will be aware, AH-O’s dual citizenship means he’s now eligible for an OBE, MBE or even a knighthood should he feel like giving the honours folk a poke in the near future.
Still firing on all cylinders, oil man Algy Cluff recently went to Buckingham Palace to collect his welldeserved OBE. Pulling up in front of the palace gates in his Range Rover, the duty policeman requested he pop open the bonnet for a customary security sweep. ‘Of course officer,’ replied Algy, 77. ‘Damned if I know how, though.’
Britain’s most blue-blooded bank, Hoare & Co, has written to clients warning them of a fraudster who’s been calling account holders ‘claiming to work in positions of authority at organisations such as British Telecom’ and (on several occasions) persuaded them to hand over a payment. At least the crook can be credited with doing his homework. Only fusty Hoare clients would still refer to BT as British Telecom.
Chancellor Philip Hammond’s spring statement on March 13 inconveniently clashes with the opening day of next year’s Cheltenham Festival, thus putting the kibosh on City workers’ best corporate away day of the year. But then Glumboots Hammond, 62, remains ignorant to the sensitivities of sporting enthusiasts. Reading and walking (yawn) are more his thing, or so his Who’s Who entry claims.
With a piece in yesterday’s little-read Financial Times, plus a Parliamentary Book Award for his even less viewed book, How to Stop Brexit, former deputy PM Nick Clegg tweets: ‘Makes me think that I may be listened to more now than when I worked in [Parliament].’ Surely gymnasium mogul Duncan Bannatyne, 68, speaks for the nation when he replies: ‘Don’t be silly, Nick. Nobody wants to listen to you.’