Call time on these pinstripe sex pests

For 333 years, Lloyd’s of London has seemed as quintessentially British as the royal Family and the Bank of England. old money, polite competence and a winning touch of chivalry.

So it’s shocking that Lloyd’s insurance market is at the centre of a sex scandal that would leave Harvey Weinstein reaching for his briefs.

An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek claims there’s a culture of sexual harassment, assault and bullying. Female employees are referred to as ‘totty’ by their bosses in chalk-stripe suits, and rated from one to ten on their ‘shagability’.

Just male banter, one might conclude. Except that this attitude led to one woman being attacked by a drunk manager, after which she was told not to complain as it would be ‘bad for her career’. Another who did complain after her boss lunged at her in a taxi was sidelined from her job, while the man, of course, kept his.

Now I have always believed that women should hold their own rather than play the victim card; that an inappropriate pass can be met with a forceful response, even a slap.

I’ve also been a harsh critic of the #MeToo movement, which can decry a friendly hug as sexual abuse.

Yet when a boorish, misogynistic culture pervades an entire institution, as appears to be the case among the oafs at Lloyd’s, no woman can fend

ONE should dismiss rumours that Hollywood A-lister Eva Green is in a romantic liaison with scruffy director Tim Burton after they worked together on the remake of Dumbo. Eva arrived on the red carpet dressed in a green lizard gown — not so much come hither, darling, as go slither.

for herself. And, in the City, Lloyd’s almost certainly isn’t alone.

Last year, the all-male Presidents Club charity dinner at The Dorchester was attended by 360 City fatcats. Some 130 ‘tall, thin and pretty’ women were hired as hostesses.

There were complaints that some of the men grabbed the girls’ bottoms and put hands up their skirts. The scandal caused the charity to fold.

I once had the misfortune of working with one of these City brutes. He boasted he chose ‘hot totty’ as his receptionists to pull in clients, and that he’d only been unfaithful to his wife ‘half a dozen times’ in ten years.

Will these posh, rich boys with their overbearing sense of entitlement ever get the message? Their era of boozefilled bullying and sexually offensive behaviour is over.

Lloyd’s must clean up its act and fast. otherwise it will be hit by a #MeToo tsunami — and its reputation will be shredded as quickly as the careers of those women who had the guts to complain.