WEBVTT - Nigel Farage Triumphs in Battle With Bankers 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.160 When you have someone like Nigel Farage on your case, 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:05.640 that might not be what they get. And certainly he's 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.560 now talking about this as a crusade against the bank 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.200 and against the wider banking industry. If history tells us 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.200 anything is once Nigel Farash gets his teeth into something, 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.400 he doesn't tend to let go quickly. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.480 I'm David Merritt and this is in the City Bloomberg's podcast, 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.800 connecting you to the conversations at the heart of the 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.120 City of London. And this week there is only one 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:38.000 story in town, and that is the resignation of Alison Rose, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.120 the chief executive of nat West. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:42.280 It's the chief executive nat West Bank. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.680 That's Dame Alison Rose has resigned after admitting that she 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:46.639 was the source for a. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.160 BBC story about Nigel Farage's bank details. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.960 He's already made it clear actually on Twitter k that 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.080 he wants to see Sir Howard Davis, the chairman of 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.280 nat West, step down as well. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.680 Dame Alison Rose been thirty one years climbing through the 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.200 NatWest ranks from graduate trainee to first female boss of 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.720 a major UK bank. It took just weeks for her 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.679 career to crumble she. 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.840 Has been brought down by Nigel Farage, the great disruptor 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.039 of the British establishment, who has struck again. He's brought 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.640 down the boss of one of the UK's largest retail 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.759 and commercial banking groups. So joining me today to pack 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.480 that story. I'm delighted to have Harry Wilson, Bloomberg's banking reporter, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:34.240 Paul Davies, Bloomberg opinion columnist covering banking and financing, Joe Mays, 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.680 who is a reporter on our UK Thank Government team. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.600 Welcome to in the city everyone, Thank you. This story 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.760 has been rumbling for a couple of weeks now, Harry, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.160 can you explain how this all kicked off and how 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:47.840 we got to the point where the chief executive of 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:49.560 NatWest has had to resign overnight. 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.160 It's a pretty extraordinary story, and it started innocuously enough 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.000 with Nigel Farage announcing on its Twitter that he'd been 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.920 debanked and was perhaps going to be forced out of 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.280 the country. Now, at that point we didn't know what 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.040 the bank was, but it quickly became apparent that the 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.919 institution in question was Coots, which is the private banking 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.320 arm of nat West. Things escalated very quickly from there, 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.160 apologies were issued and dossier was produced which showed that Forage, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.200 as he had insinuated, had indeed been dropped in part 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.840 because of his political beliefs. But then things took a 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.040 pretty crazy turn, which was that there was a BBC's 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.800 story which came out and appeared to be immaculately sourced, 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.720 which said that Forage had been dropped in fact because 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.120 of him falling below a wealth criteria. Now that was 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.560 disproved to a large extent by this dossier. Then came 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.880 obviously the apologies I mentioned, but that wasn't enough. And 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.720 following a sort of heady twenty four hours now in 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.440 which NatWest apologized twice, Alison Rose, the bank's CEO, issued 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.200 her own statement in the early hours of this morning, 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.760 wrote herself stepped down after having previously admitted to a 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.520 serious error of judgment, and now we are we have 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.320 one a love largest banks in the UK with an 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.560 interim CEO Andarage still on the warpath trying to call 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:05.720 for the chairman to go now. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.080 So as we're taping this on Wednesday morning, Farage is 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.200 calling for more people in the board of that West 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.200 to step down. Earlier this week he called for a 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.520 full parliamentary inquiry in this. 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:20.840 I mean anybody, even down to a junior clark in 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.360 a bank who've reached the confidence of a customer would 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.639 have to go. This is a non part of his ansty. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.919 This is not left or right wing politics. This is 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.440 about the British banking industry. It's about our financial services industry. 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.080 It's about the biggest employer in this country at masses. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.120 He's kind of got his scalp now, hasn't he. Do 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.360 you think this draws a line under the scandal for 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.000 that West Or is Nigel Farage going to succeed in 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.760 in persuading more of them at the bank to have 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:46.360 to step down. 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.400 If you said a week or so ago that Rose 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:49.880 would go over this, I think a lot of people 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.960 would have looked at you slightly as sconce And now 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.920 it's happened and definitely has the wind in his sales 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.880 now and also crucially he has an awful lot of 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.800 political support. It it's not just that he is doing 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:01.200 these things. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:01.520 You know. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.560 There was a very much a briefing campaign overnight from 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.200 Number ten, from the Prime Minister's office and from the 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.560 UK Finance Ministry, both basically saying that Rose had lost 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.920 their confidence and it's really that which seems to have 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.760 kicked things over the line. And so with that in mind, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.400 you look at what the board did and I guess 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.880 the question then is, well, they seem to think that 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.400 they had this thing sussed yesterday afternoon with Rose agreeing 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.760 to potentially cut her pay, but actually obviously that wasn't enough, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.440 and then that starts raise questions about their own judgment. 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:32.600 It would be too early to say that this is 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.680 a done deal. In for instance, the chairman Howard Davies 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.200 can quietly get over this because he is due to 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.920 be going anyway next year. But this obviously could hasten that. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.640 I mean, Allison Rose spent thirty years at that bank. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.400 There's rosen to become one of the most high profile 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.560 female chief executives in Britain. But you mentioned the politics 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.159 on this, and yes, on Tuesday, when it became clear 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.160 that the Prime Minister that other members of the cabinet 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.719 were losing confidence in Rome, then I guess her position 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:03.120 became more untenable. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.800 The fact that Alison Rose was such a darling of 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.719 the UK business community and indeed the UK government. Richie 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.720 su nak Jeremy Hunt would constantly talk so highly of her. Now, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.279 she was brought in to run the government's entrepreneurship Review, 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.760 she was on various business advisory councils. She was with 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.200 Richie Stunac only last week in Number ten smiling at 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.920 the Cabinet table, laughing together. And then for Number ten 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.039 and Number eleven to really come up last night and 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.440 brief so hard against her. It shows me the real 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.560 political edge of this story and how the government has 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.159 seized on this issue and is trying to use it 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.800 as a wedge against labor, who's saying, you know, they're 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.839 not standing up free speech amongst people who bank and 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:40.680 so on. I think that that's just a re striking 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:41.320 to note. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.800 To remember here, of course, that the UK government still 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:48.279 is the biggest shareholder in that west. Nigel Farage has 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.920 disrupted British politics now for decades. He of course led 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.960 the exit of Britain from the European Union, arguably bringing 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.600 down various Conservative prime ministers in his way. How is 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.840 he still able to disrupt the British establishment so effectively In. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.360 Terms of Nigel Farage, I think that part of what's 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.560 going on here is that Richie Sunak knows that he 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.040 has a slight vulnerability on his rights on the right 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.440 flank of the Conservative Party, and there are still influential 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:18.120 figures within his party. You have David Davis, Prime Minister. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.320 Back to the question raised quite rightly by biragical Friend, 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:26.400 the Member for Northeast Somerset. The opposition politicians referring to, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.120 of course, with Nigel Farage, whose bank account was closed 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.760 not because he was a PP, not because of commercial reasons, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.839 but because it's views did not align with the values 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:41.080 of Foot's bank, a thinly veiled political discrimination. 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:43.640 Jacobrey Small not for public figures. 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.720 I don't think we should be protected by them. But 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.280 you are entitled privacy by people with whom you have 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.679 a specific commercial relationship in your bank, and doctor must 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.120 be two of them, and if she has broken that code, 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.200 she is not fit to run a bank. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:58.719 We could find out who. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.560 Have spoken very vocally on this issue, and which is 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.479 you needs to keep those people on side, and that's 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.120 why I think he has kind of weighed in so 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.880 strongly on this issue and yes effectively put that extra 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.400 pressure on Rose to go and made this a big issue, 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.880 perhaps more of an issue than the public might think it. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.040 You know, warrant's important. We're talking about a relatively small 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.160 number of people here who are losing access to accounts. 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.640 In case anyone doesn't know who Coots is or who 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.640 they are, they are bankers to the rich and to royalty. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.160 King Charles's bank account is with Cutes, and they do 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.160 have rules about how much cash you've got in order 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:32.960 to have a bank account. And so you know, that 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.880 defense that they initially made on removing his bank account, 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.400 or the story that he didn't have enough funds, on 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.400 the surface, could be entirely believable. But in fact, if 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.280 it's the politics here that has taken over, I mean 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.920 paul is Allison Rose really just a victim of the 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.080 political backdrop here. Rather than say for what she did, 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:53.800 should she have lost her job. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.240 I mean she's lost her job for admitting to explicitly 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.880 speaking about an individual a client of the bank, which 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.920 obviously you really shouldn't do. Throughout Deutsche Bank's troubles with 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:10.480 banking President Trump, they were very stern about not making 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.880 sort of major statements about Trump or why they banked 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.080 him or how they banked him, and so on and 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.920 so forth, And I think she crossed the line there, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.000 which was a terrible mistake and part of a much 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.680 bigger mismanagement of this whole situation, which meant she had 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.200 to go. But the problem for nat West here is 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.280 that they've been fighting this battle which has become a 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.680 political battle, but to my mind, isn't really about the 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.880 politics at all, certainly not about Nigerl Farrag's politics with 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.120 one hand tied behind their back, because they can't reveal 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.280 a lot of stuff about what the profitability of Nigel 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.800 Farag's banking relationship with Coots looked like, either before he 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.760 repaid his mortgage, which was the kind of the precursor 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.840 to ditching him as as a client. 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:52.480 Or after. 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.800 And I think Farag has like people have asked him 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.920 to say that they can release some more details about 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.880 his account his banking with them, to kind of show 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.040 more detail about the story, and he's refused that. Obviously 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:07.400 the bank can't do it of its own accord, So 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.960 we're left with sort of half the story really from 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.040 that West points of view, but really from the point 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.199 of view of Alison Rose and the board and how 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.160 they handled this, they made some fundamental errors of judgment. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.920 They knew that ditching Farrag as a client was going 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.480 to create a massive media storm, and they've stumbled blindly 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.000 into this as if they had no idea it was coming. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.360 How is it allowed to rumblong for so long? Obviously 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.840 Alison Rose knew what she said to the BBC journalist, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.000 and then for the bank to deny that that was 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:36.880 the case. It was always going to come out in 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:37.760 the end, wasn't it, Harry. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.000 I mean, it's one of those classic things. It's not 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.680 necessarily action, it's to cover up, and in this case 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.360 it looks like they've fallen into that classic trap there. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.400 It's interesting that in the report itself which Farage is released, 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.360 one of the things that comes across again and again 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.240 is the bank actually knowingly stating and there that dropping 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.280 him will be a big issue for the bank. And yet, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.480 as Paul says, they seem to have been incredibly naive 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.800 when they did it. The expected on the one hand, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.720 as he would cause a lot of trouble and would 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:05.640 make a media storm about it, but then don't seem 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.160 to be prepared for it, which is quite remarkable. And 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.280 I mean, for that sort of media management alone, you 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.760 just have to think this level of incompetence going on 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.720 there is quite staggering. I admit they probably didn't expect 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.120 it ever to get like this, and maybe even Nigel 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.640 Farage didn't, but once it happened, they just seemed pretty clueless. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.560 It's slightly astonishing when you step back and think about 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.360 the motivations to make that move to remove his bank out. 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.560 As you said, there was an internal debate clearly at 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.120 COOTS about the fallout from this, and yet they did 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:41.200 it anyway. What possible motivation do you think internally at 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.120 NatWest could there have been for this? How could they 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.280 score such a spectacula own goal? 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.319 Paul Well, I think what's clear from all of the 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.360 reporting around the details that have been released about this 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.120 reputational risk report, how Farrage was assessed and what they 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.559 thought about him, is that, Okay, so there's a lot 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.720 of pretty colorful language in there about how he's xenophobic, 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.080 and lots of things about his politics and even some 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.920 of his business dealings, which is very unwise stuff to 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.160 include in a corporate report, almost certainly, but it strikes 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.000 me that the main thrust of what is going on 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.679 here is the bank talked about its values now call 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.959 me cynical, but I think of corporate value the set 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.600 of corporate values, as being about the brand and the 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.000 image that they want to present. It's not about deeply 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.040 held religious or beliefs or anything like this. And what 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.840 they're really worried about with a very high profile campaigning 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.600 media provocateur as a client is that he's going to 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.120 say a bunch of things which is going to reflect 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.080 badly on their reputation with all of their other customers 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.480 and their staff, which is a very common and ordinary 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.600 assessment that lots of companies make all the time. Banking 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.439 is slightly different because you have to provide basic banking services. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:01.040 But this wasn't about basic banking services. Wasn't about an 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.840 ordinary person sitting in their bedroom and saying some unfashionable 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.959 things on social media. This is about a media provocateur 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.920 who was known to be a client of Coots and 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.360 the reputational risk entailed for the bank, and also the 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.800 fact that he'd repaid his mortgage and was therefore bringing 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.600 in less revenue while still being potentially high cost. 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.280 He really is the arch media provocateur of Britain. And 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.719 as I said, you know, the disruptor of the establishment, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.240 and he was making the argument in recent days that 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.280 you know, the establishment was trying to throw him out 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.080 of Britain by debanking. I mean, presumably he could have 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.120 just gone along, trotted along to Lloyd's or HSBC and 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.640 opened another bank acount. I'm not sure you need a 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.040 Coots bank account perhaps to stay in Britain. But Joe, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.920 what does Ferrage do next? How do you see his 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.120 next move on the great media stage after this victory 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:49.640 that he's had. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.800 I mean, on your last point, David, you kind of 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.840 wonder if you're a bank today and Nier does come 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.559 and say please can I have an account? You look 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.200 at all this and you think, oh, I might not 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.719 be We might think twice at whether we want to 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:02.560 take this person or as a client because the reputation 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.520 or risk that that Paul just talked about. It does 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.000 what Nigel Farage does next, It's always an open question. 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.079 Will he set up another party, Will we have another 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.840 go at trying to become an MP and leading that 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.640 movement again? We know he has support in that world, 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.480 as you say, a very influential figure in that regard. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.120 He is always keeping us guessing. Nigel faraes he has 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.199 that media profile, that personality, but it's hard to say. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.000 I must say Richard Tyson and running a reform could 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.120 nudge Faris come back there to see. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.440 We're going to have an election in Britain next year 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.520 and as you mentioned earlier, Joe, part of the government's 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.200 maneuvering on this is to try to plicate the wing 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.000 of the party or their supporters who are a bit 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.800 more sympathetic to Nigel Farage's politics. Is he going to 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:44.800 play a bit of a bigger role perhaps in the 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.880 election that is coming than perhaps we previously thought. 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:50.920 I would not rule that out. I mean he's affectedly 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.640 done it at the last two to three general elections 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.800 and no, Richids Unit is in a difficult position in 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.920 the polls and so and he cannot afford to have 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:03.640 a stroke effectively, very right wing party contesting seats up 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.400 in the red wall across the UK, they would lose votes, 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.040 the consertive body would and that would cost them. So yeah, 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.000 that's why it's Unaike is so concerned about this, Harry. 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.000 What next then? For nat West it's one of the 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.280 biggest brands in banking in Britain. It's now without a 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:22.240 full time chief executive. They've appointed an interim CEO, but 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.040 what does the next year hold for nat West and 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:26.600 who is most likely going to sit in the chair 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:27.880 as the chief executive from here on. 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.560 Well, in banking and many sort of businesses, the interims 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.280 do have a habit of becoming permanent CEOs. And so 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.520 you know, we saw the same situation at HSBC not 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.720 so long ago when they got rid of their CEO. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.760 The the interim ultimately became the permanent CEO. So Paul Faite, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.680 who's replaced Alison Rose, on an interim basis, would look 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.120 pretty set fair as long as he does a reasonably 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.280 decent job of probably becoming the next CEO, certainly in 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.200 part because banks, like all businesses, want to minimize the 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.920 amount of disruption, so you don't want to really have 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.960 three CEOs in one year. So if you can keep 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.200 it to two, and if Fait bruce up to the task, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.040 then I'd say he's in with a very good shout. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.280 Yeah, what do we know about Porthwait? It's probably unknown 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:08.320 to most people listening to this. 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.240 Well, frankly, he's pretty unknown to me before today. But 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.560 he basically he's a commercial banking guy, so he's ahead 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.720 of their commercial banking and institutional banking business has been 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:23.400 since twenty nineteen, when he took over effectively Allison Rose's 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.200 old job when she got promoted to CEO. Before that, Actually, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.440 there isn't too much on his CV that we actually 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:30.760 sort of know about. It seems like he might have 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.240 been in transaction banking, but us going back before then, 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.000 it's a bit of a sort of a black hole 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.360 moment which obviously we will hope to fill in over time, 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.840 and which presumably now West will want to fill in 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:41.600 if they want to make the case that he should 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:42.480 be their next CEO. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.840 Paul, are there any wider ramifications for banking in Britain 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:46.240 after this? 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.840 You know, the Farrage versus Coots case is really not 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.240 very widely appickable because it's about, you know, high value, 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.760 high cost services to a high visibility, high profile client. 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.320 The vast majority of people that are not in that 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.400 sort of situation at all. There is a problem with 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.640 some people not getting the access to the banking services 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:10.760 that they require in the UK as there is in 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.640 the US, and a lot of that is to do 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.240 with people being just too poor or lacking financial education, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.400 and this sort of thing. Some politicians have claimed that 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.360 ordinary individuals are being kicked out of banks for saying things, 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.840 even just on social media, that somehow we're all being 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.600 tracked for our political views. I mean, I've seen literally 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.200 no evidence of this anywhere in any kind of news 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.840 reports that I can think of, or in any kind 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.840 of like regulatory reports or any even sort of you know, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.200 zones of investigation that conduct regulators are thinking about digging into. 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.760 I mean, I guess they'll look at it now. There 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:49.480 might well be a whole bunch of people who come 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.960 forward and make these kinds of claims now, and if 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.120 there are, then it's worth investigating properly. But I don't 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.480 imagine that many banks are really expending that much time 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:03.240 and money on researching, you know, my mum's social media 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.280 account to work out whether or not she might be 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.600 a bit mad or say some crazy things, you know. 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:09.840 Right again. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.680 In that tweet, though, far shays we need both cultural 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.840 and legal changes to a system that has on fairly 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:16.800 shot down many thousands of innocent people, and I will 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.480 do my best to be their voice in the Brexit debate. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.800 Of course, he managed to tap into this feeling that 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.720 people have been left behind by the current system. He 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.800 seems to be trying to drive another wedge in the 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.600 system here again on this particular issue, and at least 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.640 for now, the government has seemingly agreed. You know, we've 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.760 talked a lot on this podcast about the different tone 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.119 from the Rishi Sunac Jeremy Hunt administration in terms of 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.080 friendliness to business. Joe, might this be a bit of 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.720 a turning point in terms of kind of the political 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.840 battle lines being drawn for the election, This idea of 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.960 kind of the system and who is standing up for 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.280 ordinary people against say the City of London. 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.200 He talk about lessons learned, David. We had Andrew Griffiths 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.240 on our UK Politics podcast and he made exactly this point. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.520 Clearly, this was a very serious matter in a democracy. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.800 It's fundamental that people can have for confidence that they 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.879 continue their banking relationships, regardless of what they say or 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.439 the political views or party that they support, which is 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.640 why it's important that the board acted. That change has happened. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.439 We now need to go forward and make sure that 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.240 we can learn those lessons and make sure importantly that 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:31.439 this does not happen again. 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.480 He was really leaning into it. He was saying letters 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.320 needs to be learned across the whole financial sector want 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.760 banks to look at themselves and ask themselves, are you 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.920 denying services based on free speech? So it's definitely something 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.280 where the government is trying to create a wedge, and 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:46.960 if anything, we pick up a sense from within the 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.880 Conservative Party that their move at this point to give 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.320 themselves the best chance of winning the election is to 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.919 really lean into these wedge political issues that they can 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.760 kind of make hay out of, where it's not really 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.840 about public so or the NHS or cost of living 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:03.840 or you know, these issues that you might think are 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.640 kind of bread and butter realities for the public. It's 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.520 instead taking political dividing lines such as the war on 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.280 woke for example, or these kind of cultural issues and 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.040 really trying to kind of paint yourself as a complete 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.520 opposite to labor and on the side of working people 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.439 and what the kind of common sense view of politics is. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.359 That really is a strategy we can to seem more 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.080 and it's not sun acts. I don't think he's naturally 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.399 comfortable with doing it, but he recognizes that they do 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.359