HSBC to relocate 1,000 key jobs from London to Paris because of Brexit
Theresa May, a woman more interested in getting het up about Easter eggs than the fate of the British economy, should take note. HSBC are planning on relocating as many as 1,000 of its traders and salespeople from London to Paris due to Brexit.
Representing a section of the firm’s staff that generates a most significant 20% of its revenue, the move accompanies news that the bank’s clients “are asking to book more of their trade and foreign exchange activity in their French operation through [the firm’s] Paris office than their UK” divisions.
On Wednesday, Noel Quinn, head of global commercial banking at HSBC Holdings Plc, told Stephen Morris of Bloomberg Markets:
“Some companies are also evaluating whether to ‘flip’ their regional head offices to European cities from Britain. This would require them to reclassify the UK branch as a country office that would become a subsidiary of the continental headquarters”.
A 20-question interview with contemporary artist Alexander Newley
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Eros, anger, anxiety, love – in perfect and contradictory admixture.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
When fate raises its sword to make you tremble, go forth into it and you will find bliss.
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2017?
Who’s that? Cancer/Steve Bannon – basically the same thing…
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
No missing – still on target.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
I have no material wealth. Health and creativity is ALL, although I’d like some new drapes in the kitchen.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank”. What’s your view on the state of the financial system?
The dollar rocketed when Trump came in. Need we say more?
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“The UK” delivered in a peppy, north London accent and “Your call is very important to us, please stay on the line…”
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
I couldn’t agree more. Everything is a spiral: work from the centre out. I have just raised a fair bit for the St. Martin-in-the-Fields homeless charity through the auction of my paintings.
The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
A necessary evil. Can you imagine life before? The carousel goes faster and faster and we have to find a way to stay on it. That said, the counter-revolution: silence, mindfulness, not giving a fig is pretty good, too.
Portraits of Dominick Dunne (1925 – 2009) and Sir Nigel Hawthorne CBE (1929 – 2001) by Alexander Newley
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
Shakespeare (of course), Oscar (of course), Churchill (large brandy in hand), Chaplin (tearing tickets), my father (Anthony Newley), Sheela (my love), Ava (my daughter), Freud x2 (grandfather and grandson) and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (for perfect Surrealism).
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
A tuna melt with ketchup, on the undercliff in Lyme Regis, watching the sun sink on a balmy summer’s eve.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
10:45am (if it be a mixture of German dessert wine and seltzer).
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
Tea please, milk, no sugar (although I want the sugar).
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
I rarely enjoy them because I don’t go to enough, and you have to invest in the social whirl before it pays back. I’m still working on that—but I did have a pretty good time at Hugh Hefner’s once.
Who is the most positive person you know?
Myself, although periodically encumbered by massive humbug.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
The occasional bout of self-love.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A minotaur rampart on a bed of roses.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A prototype Isotta Fraschini. Only two were made and one crashed at very high speed.
Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I can identify almost anyone from the back; the habit of a portraitist.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
Two vases of anemonies, one tall one short.
Alexander Newley is a contemporary artist. His subjects have numbered Steven Berkoff, Christopher Reeve, Oliver Stone, Gore Vidal and Billy Wilder and his work features in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Historic Battersea mansion for sale for the same sum it was marketed for in 2011; it has been mostly empty throughout the intervening period and was renovated by the late billionaire Malcolm Forbes
Billionaire publisher Malcolm Forbes was a man who liked to live large. He had a huge yacht named The Highlander, threw lavish parties across the globe and counted Gianni Agnelli, Gordon Getty, Calvin Klein, Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump as friends. This “mysterious collector” also owned numerous residences and one of these, Old Battersea House in London, is for sale for the same sum as it was marketed for in 2011.
Often seen with Elizabeth Taylor at his side and described as “living life in the fabulous”, Forbes purchased Old Battersea House in 1971. It had previously been home to and saved from demolition by Battersea Council by the eccentric author and ghost hunter Wilhemina Stirling. She took up a lifetime tenancy on the building in 1931 and used it to house artworks by her sister, Evelyn de Morgan (1855 – 1919).
Grade II* listed since 1954 and adapted during Forbes and subsequently his son Kip’s ownership to showcase a vast collection of Victorian art and antiques, Old Battersea House was built on Tudor foundations in 1699 and was at first known as ‘Terrace House’. It originally had gardens extending down to the River Thames and is rumoured to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723).
Featuring “handsome classical proportions throughout” and standing within a 110-foot wide walled garden, the 10,100 square foot house includes 4 reception rooms, 10 double bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. It has off-street parking and a garden store but it is sadly overlooked by the adjoining housing estate that was built in its grounds in the 1930s.
The impressive hallway of Old Battersea HouseAnother entertaining spaceElizabeth Taylor and her then husband Larry Fortensky at Old Battersea House in 1992Images of the house as it was furnished during the ownership of the Forbes family
Has Ken Livingstone become Britain’s answer to Donald Trump?
Father of five Ken Livingstone would no doubt hate the comparison but, putting him in perspective, he’s rather like a British version of the American father of five Donald Trump.
When Ken Livingstone doesn’t like what is said about him, he terms it “incredible lies”; Donald Trump, by comparison, prefers to reference such reporting: “Fake news!” Whereas Livingstone claims to have “no interest in managing [his] financial affairs”, Trump simply refuses to release details of his income. Here, in the form a reptile loving socialist and a four times bankrupt billionaire, are two bombastic politicians with not a care for books and history and here are two loudmouths who respectively suggest: “My only regret is the media’s obsession with the past” and that they believe themselves to be the “Ernest Hemmingway of 140 characters”.
That “anti-politician politician” Livingstone, like “anti-politician, real persona” Trump, has been able to get off scot-free speaks volumes. It is time such men were brought to book and it is time their ability to avoid being held accountable for their truly offensive views came to an end.
Essex “neo Georgian Palladian” residence created from an ordinary detached house marketed for £5.4 million; it is a bit of a mish-mash and described as “over-engineered”
Estate agents normally wax lyrical about properties they are marketing but in the case of £5.4 million ($6.7 million, €6.3 million or درهم24.8million) Threshers House at Threshers Bush, near Harlow in Essex, Beresfords bizarrely go as far as to describe it as “over-engineered”.
Situated on a plot of 11.5 acres and redeveloped and extended since 2010 by an “award winning builder” named Paul Pickering, the 7,409 square foot main residence offered is described as being “neo Georgian Palladian” in style. Given such an architectural period doesn’t exist as a sole entity, it is a bit of a mish-mash but given the new building is an improvement on the plain house that it has been created from, one can be forgiving of the result.
The old Threshers House, Hobbs Cross Road, Threshers Bush, Harlow, Essex, CM17 0NP
The new Threshers House, Hobbs Cross Road, Threshers Bush, Harlow, Essex, CM17 0NP
The old interior of the building and the new interior
A proposed design that was ultimately rejected by planning officials at Epping Forest District Council
Aside from a somewhat ostentatious South Fork-esque portico entrance, Threshers House is presented without kitchens and bathrooms so as to allow “incoming purchasers to design to their own requirements”. It includes 5 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and a 2-bedroom first floor flat and comes with planning permission for a 1,400 square foot orangery and underground leisure facility. Within the grounds is a completed 1,988 square foot 3 bedroom cottage, a 886 square foot bungalow, a 768 square foot bungalow and a 1,386 square foot six car garage.
Elsewhere and benefitting from separate access, a tiled stable and thatched barn complex provides accommodation for 14 horses and was previously run as a business named Threshers Equestrian. It comes with a horse walker, floodlit manège, lunging room and hard standing as well as a number of paddocks.
Threshers House – which is situated about 40 minutes drive from Canary Wharf – is also available for £3.25 million ($4.06 million, €3.81 million or درهم14.92 million) with just 5 acres of land and minus the ancillary accommodation.
Spirits brands hike prices by upto 16% and blame Brexit for increasing their supply-side costs
Drink loving Brexiteers may have cause to reconsider their enthusiasm for Britain leaving the EU.
Since last year’s referendum, the price of vodka has risen 5% on average whilst gin is up 3%. Bombay Sapphire has hiked its price by 16% to £24.20 for a litre bottle according to The Grocer and many other brands have followed suit.
Worldwide co-leader in the wine and spirits sector Pernod Ricard blamed the increases on supply-side costs rising due to Brexit whilst The Wine and Spirit Trading Association added that the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has added to the industry’s woes and created “a tough trading environment”.
Summing up Britain beginning its road to Brexit and an amusing take on the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk
Yesterday, Theresa May found her date with destiny and triggered Article 50. With no more restrictions on bendy bananas (a total myth) and the start of a long goodbye, Britain reached a “historic moment” from which there can be – as the shoe loving Prime Minister herself put it – “no turning back”.
As Sky News suggested 56% of those they polled were happy with what is about to occur, Mrs May met with her cabinet in Downing Street. Bumbling Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was the last to arrive at the gathering and the first to leave and later the well-known CV exaggerator turned Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Andrea Leadsom announced she was “very happy” with what had been discussed.
May was unsurprisingly subsequently heckled in Parliament when she announced: “We know we will lose influence… The world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe” and was met with disdain from Lord Heseltine also. He commented:
“The letter represents the biggest sacrifice of British sovereignty that I can remember… All the stuff about gaining sovereignty will be exposed for the hypocrisy that it was… It is the biggest sacrifice of self-interest I know of”.
Whilst the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker remarked of the biggest victory for nationalism since the Second World War: “I’m deeply sad”, we’ll leave the final word with the President of the European Council Donald Tusk. He added: “Thank you and goodbye”.
An amusing take on Theresa May’s letter, shared widely on social media, to Donald Tusk follows:
Matthew Steeples extols the relevance of the Donmar Warehouse’s ‘Limehouse’ to Britain’s contemporary political climate
At a time when Brexit has divided Britain and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour continues to provide little-to-no opposition to Theresa May’s somewhat unfocused, unelected government, the relevance of a play named Limehouse is especially poignant.
Based around the formation of the ill-fated Social Democratic Party by the ‘Gang of Four’ – Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and David Owen – in 1981, what The Telegraph calls a “domestic sitcom” takes place entirely in a “bourgeois” kitchen. It occurs during a period when moderates – driven to try to find an alternative to the rise of Thatcherism on one side and the loony left on the other – despaired at a nation divided and sought out a new way forward. Limehouse – named after the area where Owen lived at the time – effectively examines what this quartet believed the UK needed then and what many believe the UK again needs today: A credible centrist party.
Played out as a kitchen table coup by four ultimately flawed politicians over two bottles of Château Lafite, the plot is cleverly guided by a fifth member, the American born literary agent wife of David Owen. She concludes the play by asking: “What if?” in the context of what might have happened had a sensible centrist political movement been successful back in the 1980s. It’s the very question that will be on the lips of so many as we head towards Theresa May triggering Article 50 on the 29th March.
Georgian mansion, where Admiral Lord Nelson lived with his lover and her husband, for sale for £4.25 million; it was renovated by a former Nintendo executive
One would expect a senior executive of a tech company to live in a slick, modern home in Silicon Valley, but since 2004, Matthew Hill, for many years a senior manager at Nintendo, has called a Grade II listed manor house named Fir Hill in Hampshire’s Meon Valley home.
Built in 1765 and the scene of one of the most famous ménages à trois in history when home to Sir William Hamilton, his wife Emma and Admiral Horatio, 1st Viscount Nelson in 1801 to 1802, the 7,905 square foot “Georgian masterpiece” includes 3 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It stands in 5.2 acres of land and comes with a two-storey stable block with potential for secondary accommodation.
Mr Hill purchased the property from Mrs Vida Schreiber, previously Lady Clive, after the death of her husband, Brigadier Schreiber. He met intellectual property lawyer Georgy Evans in 2007 and married her in St Mary and All Saints church in Droxford in 2012 and in the time since, aside from completing the renovation of Fir Hill, the couple have worked together creating a website that comprehensively details the entire history of the building.
Of the renovation and why they are now selling, Matthew Hill told Hampshire Life:
“The renovation work took us 10 years on and off. Our architect said, you either have a big bang and not live here for two years or work in phases. We decided to do the work in four phases which meant we could live here, moving around the house as each phase was completed. The experience of living in the house helped with the restoration… It’s a lovely house, with a lovely feeling, but too big for the two of us now”.
Fir Hill is for sale for £4.25 million ($5.17 million, €4.87 million or درهم19.07 million) through Christie’s Real Estate.
As Nicola Sturgeon lobs a grenade at Theresa May’s “red, white and blue Brexit”, Jeremy Corbyn is met with equal derision
Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon pulled a blinder and threw a spanner in Theresa May’s plan to announce a “red, white and blue Brexit” with immediate effect.
Undoubtedly the reason hapless Mrs May didn’t proceed to trigger Article 50 on Monday, Sturgeon’s actions left even Conservative hardliners questioning the merits of the unknown road Britain is currently on. They, of course, care for the Union more than anything else and that it is again at risk is most worrying indeed.
On Tuesday morning, Tory MP Anna Soubry told SKY News:
“I would say to Theresa May: Don’t turn your back on the Single Market. It would solve the problem in Scotland and Northern Ireland if we stayed in the Single Market”.
Elsewhere, Labour lightweight Jeremy Corbyn took to Twitter to ask the public to “join [him] in Parliament Square and help defend the rights of EU citizens who have made a life here”. He was understandably met with utter derision and amongst the 618 comments in response were such remarks as:
“Piss off Jeremy, you whipped your MPs into letting the UK get into this state. Stick your pointless rally up your arse”.
“You do know you’re allowed inside Parliament, right? You actually have a nice platform in there where you can push for change”.
“You’re the leader of a political party, not a protest movement. There’s a crucial vote in the Lords today, and soon in the Commons. Focus on that, not pick-nicking in the square”.
“An oven glove on a stick would be a more effective opposition leader than you”.
