My enemy’s enemy is my new friend at Santander

KITE-SURFER and veteran banker William Vereker’s recent CV is rather, um, turbulent as he inches towards taking the chairmanship of Santander UK. The Old Etonian was forced to work in a windowless room in Broadgate after a falling-out at UBS with then investment banking boss Andrea Orcel back in 2018, before doing a decent job in patching up Theresa May’s relations with the City after her early business-bashing overtures. He

then lost that role when Boris Johnson arrived at No 10 and — after a stint kite-surfing in Brazil and Morocco — joined JPMorgan just five months ago. If he lands the Santander gig, he’ll be working with

DON’T expect to find Hargreaves Lansdown founder Peter Hargreaves, left, on Zoom. The Tory donor, worth £2.4 billion, tells the “Can I ask you a personal question?” podcast of his hatred of meetings, recalling: “If I ever saw a meeting going on, I used to go and bloody join it. And do you know, every single meeting I ever joined, I used to walk in and sit down at the table. Do you know what somebody would say in that meeting when I sat down? ‘We’ll finish then.’ They’d all stand up and walk out.” Sounds sensible.

group chairman Ana Botin, who blocked Orcel’s announced appointment as CEO in a bitter row over his pay. It would appear the enemy of Vereker’s enemy could well be his friend.

EVER brusque former City minister Lord Myners sums up the situation nicely as the Government nears bailouts over a handful of firms: “We’ve been rescuing in various forms Tata Steel and Jaguar Land Rover ever since I was a child.” Good to see some things haven’t changed in this upside-down Britain.