The dastardly Mr Deedes

Trigger-happy Barclays boss John McFarlane is hosting his annual chairman’s dinner in May at edgy London members’ club The Ned. The jovial Scot, 70, enjoys a good party. Colleagues at Aussie bank ANZ called him ‘Johnny Cash’ due to his fondness for breaking out his guitar. Perhaps he’ll croon a tune for his embattled £3.9m-a-year chief Jes Staley, 61, whose fate, following an investigation into his attempt to uncover a whistleblower, may well have been decided by then. The Bank of England’s gangly chief economist Andy Haldane, 50, claims his colleagues are more engaged with the public than ever before. He says: ‘Seventy years ago, the Bank published precisely one speech a year. It uttered publicly fewer than 5,000 words a year. Last year, it uttered in excess of four and half million.’ And all of it simply riveting, without a doubt. Aren’t we blessed to be living in these times? The temporary closure of Salisbury’s Zizzi restaurant in connection to the poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal needn’t spell disaster for secretive owners Bridgepoint Capital. When Itsu’s Piccadilly branch was temporarily shut after poisoned spook Alexander Litvinenko lunched there, smooth old Harrovian owner Julian Metcalfe, 58, assumed his sushi chain was kaput. But the ensuing publicity worked in its favour. Business has boomed ever since. The dissatisfaction of Remoaner bosses with the Prime Minister prompts an uppity FTSE 100 chief to remark over breakfast: ‘If Theresa May were in business, she might possibly make it to chief financial officer. But she’s certainly not chief executive material.’ Chatham House rules sadly forbid me revealing the sour booby’s identity. Let’s just say if the PM clamps down on excessive pay, the blighter will be first against the wall. Eternally chipper City spinner and seasoned trencherman Peter Bingle, 58 (age not waist size!) fondly describes his time at now defunct public relations giant Bell Pottinger as ‘like living in ancient Rome under Nero’. Sans incest, matricide and multiple castrations, we must hope.