The dastardly Mr Deedes

Blue-blooded private bankers Hoare & Co, Britain’s oldest bank, has appointed former Treasury boffin, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, as its new chairman. Tousled Sir Nicholas, 57, succeeds another retired Sir Humphrey, Lord Wilson, in October. Haven’t crafty Whitehall officials done well out the City? Combustible ex-Treasury minister Baroness Vadera, 54, aka ‘Shriti the Shriek’, is chairman of Santander where she receives £650,000 a year. Sir John Major’s dry biscuit adviser Lord Blackwell, 63, pockets £700,000 as chairman of Lloyds. Another Treasury mandarin, bookish Sir John Kingman, 47, recently took up the £340,000 chairmanship of Legal & General. Former Barclays director Andrea Leadsom’s Prime Ministerial bid remains dogged by claims her City CV is over-egged. Talking up her qualifications on Newsnight, campaign manager Tim Loughton said: ‘She’s widely respected. She was highly involved in the financial crisis in 2008 working alongside [Bank of England Governor] Eddie George.’ Really? Lord (Mervyn) King was governor in 2008, so that’s cobblers. Ex-fund manager Loughton is confusing Leadsom’s claim to have advised George during Barings Bank’s collapse in 1995. But since convivial, chainsmoking ‘Steady Eddie’ is sadly no longer with us, we may have to take her word for it. Argos owner Home Retail Group spent a ludicrous £2m on public relations dur- ing its £1.4bn takeover by Sainsbury’s, after being advised by city spinners Finsbury. Sainsbury’s spent £600,000 with rival firm Brunswick. Talk about money for old rope. Wonder what the 600-odd staff Sainsbury’s are now preparing to lay-off make of it all? Update on Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green’s yet-to-be delivered £100m yacht, Lionheart, which I reported remains moored in the Italian port of Livorno. A reader enjoying a cruise spied the sprawling monstrosity from his cabin window yesterday. Several engineers were moping about on board, taking it for a brief chug around the harbour. Meanwhile, Green, 64, was spotted in Jersey this week, casually perusing a BHS window display. Tough-talking health club mogul and Dragon’s Den judge Duncan Bannatyne, 67, whose miraculously bristled thatch is the result of a painful, strand-by- strand hair transplant, shares a picture on Twitter of him scuba diving in Ibiza. An impudent Twitter user asks: ‘Is your wig waterproof?’ Uncalled for!