MY journalist friend read out a list of names. Did I have private contact details for any of them?
To be honest, I told him, there was only one I recognised, and Sir Howard Davies would not talk. Yes, they were the board members of NatWest, and apart from Davies, the chairman, they were relative unknowns. It must say something about the major bank they were there at all. What qualifies them?
The question has already been answered by the events preceding the departure of Dame Alison Rose, the bank’s chief executive. As soon as Nigel Farage began to kick up about the decision of Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest, to ditch him as a customer, the parent board should have been on the case. Emergency meetings ought to have been held and Coutts’ executives heavily interrogated.
Nobody is better at whipping up a row than the former Ukip leader, he revels in embarrassing the Establishment.A posh bank, one that loves telling us about its long history of serving the great and the good, that did not want his business, clearly fell into that category. Throw in the suspicion that they might have been motivated bypolitical animus, and the stage was set.
Except the group bosses did not see it that way. Perhaps they did gather, but we’ve not been told so. Instead, the impression we were given was of a bunch of directors led by Davies who were not concerned.
Then, it turned out, Coutts had prepared a dossier on Farage that was a case study in sheer banality and irrelevance. We knew that, because Farage had obtained it via a Subject Access Request or SAR, a formal move he was entitled to make. Well done Rose and Co for not realising he would serve an SAR. Well done too, because thanks to the publicity, lots of folk who have been rejected down the years may well be lining up to follow suit, and not only against Coutts but all banks. You did the financial services industry proud.
Wait, though, it transpired the report was not the reason. Farage did not meet the bank’s financial criteria. Woah! That seemed to go beyond the bounds of banking confidentiality.
Farage insisted it was not true. In stepped the BBC’s business editor, Simon Jack, who said a senior Coutts source told him it was Farage’s finances. Again, the rules on privacy appeared too have been broken.
Then, it was revealed that Rose sat next to Jack at a charity dinner, the night before he filed his story. He apologised to Farage for its inaccuracy, as did the BBC. The latter’s apology contained the crucial nugget that the BBC had gone back to their informant and checked it was OK to publish. Finally, the ceo admitted she had tipped off Jack.
Davies and his colleagues should have instantly fired her. Instead, the chairman issued a statement that was astonishing in its arrogance. He supported Rose, saying she enjoyed his confidence.
It was bizarre. Davies showed no regard for the public furore, for Farage (and whatever Davies, a Remainer, must think of him, Farage is an individual with rights to be respected), for the fact that the near 40% shareholder in the NatWest was the Government.
We’ve been here before of course with bankers, which is why NatWest had to be bailed out by the taxpayer in the first place. Clearly, in bank boardrooms, hubris is very much alive.
At any moment in the sorry saga, Davies and the directors could and should have brought Rose and her staff to heel. Maybe they did, but as I say, there is no sign. The ludicrous supportive statement suggests they did not.
Farage is now calling for all their heads. He adores pushing it to the max. It’s easy to dismiss him as trying it on, going too far. But there is nothing that suggests they should stay.
Davies, serial grandee, an ex-Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and director of the LSE, has revealed he is not up to it. He must go immediately, and frankly, the rest of his fellow, seemingly makeweight directors with him.
Peter Flavel, the silent Coutts CEO, did at least take responsibility and depart last night, with “immediate effect”.
Once again, UK banking chiefs have been found wanting. Not for the first time, too, those who make top-level appointments must take a long look at themselves.
Chris Blackhurst is the author of Too Big To Jail: Inside HSBC, the Mexican drug cartels and the greatest banking scandal of the century (Macmillan)
