Should Farage be allowed to keep his Coutts bank account?

In the UK this week there has been a lot of press about Nigel Farage having his Coutts bank account closed. Coutts is a bank for the very wealthy and he does not meet their criteria for how much money he has, but this week it became clear that another reason for closing the account was that the Coutts Reputational Risk Committee did not feel his politics were a fit with the bank’s values. The British newspapers are shouting that it is outrageous that a bank can close an account because they do not agree with the beliefs of a customer. I think they are wrong.

Before I retired I was a banker with NatWest Group, which includes Coutts. So I have some experience in this area. I also held a senior role at Co-op Bank for a few years, probably the most ethically based bank in the UK, and at Nationwide Building Society, the biggest customer owned bank in the UK. At the time I really noticed the difference in behaviour between these “value based” banks, and the big four – NatWest/RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC, which were much more focused on profit.

After the banking crisis in 2008, the bailed out banks were left with a terrible reputation, and even now people talk about bankers as being all bad, in the same way they consider politicians, and criminals. To combat this, the big four have repositioned themselves as value based. I remember when the current CEO of NatWest, Dame Alison Rose, was appointed, one of the key reasons was her desire for NatWest to be “purpose led”.

So let’s look at what they say.

Lloyds: “Our purpose if Helping Britain Prosper. We do this by creating a more sustainable and inclusive future for people and businesses, shaping finance as a force for good”.
Barclays: “Our five Values – Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – are our moral compass; the fundamentals of who we are and what we believe is right.”
NatWest (including Coutts): “We are guided by our purpose. We champion potential, helping people, families and businesses to thrive.”
HSBC: “Opening up a world of opportunity – helping to create a better world – for our customers, our people, our investors, our communities and the planet we all share.”

I don’t think any of these purposes has really got traction with the public. I am not sure they are aware of them, or believe that banks stand behind them. A customer looking for an ethical bank in the UK will still tend to choose Co-op or a building society.

So instead of Alison Rose apologising to Nigel Farage, as she has done, perhaps she should stand up and say that we do not want to bank customers whose values do not align with ours. What is wrong with that? Perhaps then, people

Don’t worry, next week I will drop the politics and be back to everyday stories of living on a narrowboat.

July 21, 2023 0

Five reasons why I didn’t vote this week

We had local elections in the UK yesterday. I didn’t vote. I think this is the first election where I have not voted since I got the vote, aged 18. I am feeling pretty guilty about it. I have an ingrained belief that everyone should vote. Not voting is lazy and results in politicians being elected by minorities of the population, activists that do not represent what most people want. So why didn’t I vote?

Firstly I should say that I am still struggling with the decision. We have had postal votes for years, so that we can vote when away from home. But…

We couldn’t find a way to get the papers. Our eldest son, Rob, is currently living n our house in Scotland, and had the voting papers, but being on a narrowboat we couldn’t think of a way to get them to us.
It doesn’t feel right to be choosing a local representative in Scotland, when we are spending at least the next six months travelling around England in a boat.
I struggle with who to vote for. In our local area, it is a choice between Scottish National Party (SNP), Conservative (Tories), or Labour. In recent years only Tories and SNP have had a chance, so Labour feels like a wasted vote. I can’t vote SNP because I believe strongly in the benefits of a United Kingdom (I wish we were still part of the European Union). I can’t bring myself to vote Conservative, given the outrageous Tory politicians who ignored the rules during lockdown, when everyone I knew was putting their lives on hold.
My vote does not matter. Whoever wins or lose, my one vote will not alter the result.
Politics seems so far away from what we are doing at the moment. On a narrowboat, what I care about is Canal & River Trust, who run the waterways, and are independent of government, and the community of boaters, who I meet every day. Local politicians don’t care about travelling boaters because we come and go all the time.

Sometimes when I write this blog, it is for you. I really want to share my stories with you. Sometimes when I write this blog, it is for me. It helps me clarify in my head what I am thinking. This week has been one of those. None of the five reasons I have listed are strong enough. I could have got the papers via a friend or family. Voting is an obligation. Of course my vote matters. Politicians do affect what happens on the canals, and everywhere.

Next time I will vote.

May 6, 2022 2

Is this the end of the pandemic?

It may seem an odd thing to say when in the UK we have had more people contracting Covid in recent weeks than ever before, but I think this week may mark the end of the pandemic. Numbers of cases are now reducing, and numbers of people in hospital have not reached anything like the peaks of last spring. When we look back in a year’s time I think Omicron may be seen as having been a good thing. It has given millions of people increased immunity, adding to the benefits of vaccines, without immobilising the NHS or killing vast numbers. Of course I know that every death is a tragedy, and I feel for everyone impacted, but at last can we now get back to normality?

UK cases by age group – source Zoe Study

I wonder if living more normally is one reason that the UK public have been so angry this week at the revelation that Boris Johnson attended a party in his garden, while we were in full lockdown back in 2020. Most of us have suffered materially in the past two years, whether through loss of friends and relatives, or damage to our own physical and mental health. Despite this we have got on with our lives. We have built up anger with nowhere to direct it. Now perhaps we can let that out a little. And when we find out that the likes of Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Dominic Cummings have been ignoring or bending rules, then that anger overflows.

Personally this week I have felt a mixture of anger, fascination with the politics and some sympathy with those involved. The latter may seem a contradiction, but I do have sympathy with the civil servants who had been putting themselves at risk, working 12+ hours a day in close contact with each other to try to help this country through the pandemic. Back in May 2020 I was leading a large operational team, most of whom where working at home, but some who had to work in an office. Those people did not have alcohol or parties but sometimes they would let of steam in the grassy area outside the office. They would maintain social distance and I believe followed all rules, but to someone outside would it look as if they were taking things seriously enough? I don’t know.

In the UK we have a reputation that we can laugh at anything, smile in the most trying of circumstances, make fun of serious events. We all needed those safety valves in May 2020, as we do now. If this is truly the end of the pandemic, let’s adopt the ideas of the recently deceased Desmond Tutu, who led the Truth and Reconciliation reviews after apartheid was dismantled. Let’s try to find out the truth about what happened and how it could have been better, let’s apologise for things that were wrong. And then let’s move on.

Am I mad?

January 14, 2022 3