HSBC
HSBC's virtue-signalling hypocrisy
Ah, HSBC. The Asian banking giant has raised some eyebrows in recent years with their endless antics to appear oh…
Pronoun badges backfire for embarrassed banks
Pride month means only one thing: the chance for corporations to embarrass themselves with the latest right-on social media stunt.…
Why poetry matters
Juan Carlos, ex-King of Spain, behaved foolishly in relation to money and sex, and so his decision to leave Spain…
Portrait of the week: Cabinet reshuffle, another royal divorce and coronavirus hits iPhones
Home The Budget, still scheduled for 11 March, had to be rewritten after Rishi Sunak was made Chancellor of the…
The perils of owning an erotic Nazi toy
My parents told me that their wartime childhoods were punctuated by the expression: ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’…
Time for new leadership at Barclays and HSBC – and a new name at RBS
After a dull interlude, the big banks in their annual results season look a bit more interesting again. First to…
Running a bank’s tough. That’s no reason to start handing capital back
A mixed bag of annual results from the big banks. RBS, still 73 per cent owned by the taxpayer, recorded…
Hollande equals Thatcher? If only
Have you ever tried discussing the merits of gun control with a Texan, or of deregulated labour markets with a…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, decided to allow ministers to campaign for either side in the referendum on membership…
The dinner where laissez-faire banking died
Last week’s deadline did not allow me to report from ringside at the Mansion House dinner, but there was so…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said of the EU referendum: ‘If you want to be part of the government,…
Portrait of the week
Home The country went to the polls. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, prepared by going around with his sleeves rolled…
Why David Cameron is best placed to win the crucial Ikea vote
If Ikea were a constituency, it would be a three-way marginal. That was my thought one morning last week as…
The Heckler: down with the actor-commentariat!
I’ve never been terribly keen on actors. I prefer hairdressers and accountants. And teachers and builders and lawyers. I may…
Portrait of the week
Home In a Budget intended to have ‘no gimmicks, no giveaways’, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, offered pensioners…
Won’t someone please unleash the challenger banks?
In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed…
Watch out: Standard Chartered is even trickier to manage than credit default swaps
One day you’re an elder statesman, chairing top committees and pontificating on Question Time, and the next you’re out in…
Portrait of the week
Home Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, resigned as chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee and promised…
Lord Green must answer for HSBC’s sins – but maybe it was always too big to manage
Stephen Green — the former trade minister Lord Green of Hurstpier-point, who became this week’s political punchbag— was always a…
