It’s hard to shed a tear for someone who is upset because a posh bank has closed their account and it’s even harder when that person is Nigel Farage.
This was one of those stories you want to look away from but somehow can’t, especially when more people waded into the debate with each passing day, including the prime minister.
A lot of the time it was Farage himself wading into the same row repeatedly, just wearing a different outfit.
It was like having a domestic with someone who keeps thinking up rebukes while doing the washing up, and then emerges from the kitchen in an apron and Marigolds, wielding the Fairy Liquid and going: “And another thing!”
Farage’s outfits are bewildering and if Coutts “debanked” him for dressing like a bookie at a mid-week race meeting no matter the occasion, I wouldn’t blame them.
Anyway, as bankers to royalty they might have a dress code.
As it was, it was initially suggested the bank had closed his accounts because he didn’t have enough money and some people had a good snigger about that. (They didn’t get the memo about glass houses and throwing stones.)
Free speech
Then Farage said he had obtained a Coutts internal memo which he claimed showed he was cancelled partly because of his political views.
That prompted Rishi Sunak to look up from his cashmere jumper catalogue and say: “It wouldn’t be right if financial services were being denied to anyone exercising their right to lawful free speech.”
This was in contrast to the glacial pace with which Rishi addresses the rest of the country’s problems so I wondered if the staggeringly wealthy PM has a dog in the race.
The government said it will make it harder for banks to close accounts and Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the Coutts’ decision “sinister” – but there’s a chance she thinks that’s a compliment.
Coutts said it was not policy to close accounts “solely on the basis of legally held political and personal views” and that such decisions “are not taken lightly”.
Late on Thursday Farage received an apology from Alison Rose, the boss of the bank’s parent company NatWest, who said the closure was a commercial decision.
Is there any other kind these days?
Rising costs
Absolutely every aspect of life now seems to be determined by cost and navigating a supermarket has become as tricky as appearing on Floor Is Lava.
The Competition and Markets Authority have told stores to make their pricing clearer to help shoppers compare products and identify savings.
I could have sworn they’d been warned about bamboozling customers before, and yet I still have to sit down after a mind-bending trip to the frozen pizza aisle.
On the plus side, inflation slowed from 8.7% in May to 7.9% in June, and mortgage rates fell for the first time in two months.
Remember inflation is still almost four times higher than the Bank of England’s 2% target and, according to the ONS, food inflation is 17.3%, so let’s not start high-fiving each other just yet.
Even the world’s richest man has been feeling the squeeze, with Tesla’s profit margin falling to its lowest level in four years.
Chief executive Elon Musk says the carmaker will keep cutting prices to compete during these “turbulent times” and I just wonder, if he can do it for Teslas, could the Co-op do it for Coffeemate?
Hospital wedding
Of course, there are much more valuable things in the world and I was moved by the story of the Oban couple who married in an emotional bedside ceremony in hospital.
Former CalMac worker John Gallacher and his bride Lesley had to put off their wedding three times during the pandemic and then suffered another setback when he took seriously ill.
With the help of family and staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow, the couple have now tied the knot.
The new Mrs Gallacher said: “As John was so ill, we set our minds to the thing that really mattered, and that was that two people who love each other and wanted to be husband and wife whatever else.”
There’s something money can’t buy.