New Coppola Comment post, on the Trump campaign's genius idea to use import tariffs as weapons in a new trade war. They didn't work last time, so why would they work now?
(Image is from Blazing Saddles, I do hope you've all seen it!)
Astonishing lies from Lipman'. Let's debunk them.
1) The whole basis of the Zionist claim to the former British mandate of Palestine was, and is, based on Jews still having "right of return" after 2000 years.
2) Zionists were not given the whole of Palestine. The UN gave them…
Laura Kuenssberg talking absolute twaddle on
#PoliticsLive
. Repeating the "no money left" nonsense from 2020. Talking about "maxed-out national credit cards".
@BBCPolitics
this is an utter disgrace and totally irresponsible. Please educate your reporters in basic economics.
I thought you would all like to know that Richard Tice has dropped his threatened legal action against me.
I have admitted nothing and paid him nothing.
Many thanks to my wonderful legal team for sorting this out quickly and efficiently.
Without wishing to stir the pot further... Nigel Farage's personal finances are not in the public domain unless he chooses to put them there, but his company finances very much are. I have been doing some digging... 1/
This is a lie. The evidence produced by Farage shows the account was closed for commercial reasons. Alison Rose resigned because she breached client confidentiality. Stop spreading lies.
It is right that the NatWest CEO has resigned.
This would never have happened if NatWest had not taken it upon itself to withdraw a bank account due to someone’s lawful political views. That was and is always unacceptable.
I hope the whole financial sector learns from this…
Ok, he's done it. Sent a letter before action. Among other things, the letter alleges that I am also defaming Nigel Farage by refusing to back down over the facts of the Coutts case. This is beyond ridiculous.
I am sick and tired of hearing ignoramuses like Bernard Jenkin claim that the Millenium bug didn't exist. IT DID. I worked on Y2K projects. We found bugs and we fixed them. It's because we did such a good job that people who weren't involved think there was never a problem.
Dear
@TomHunt1988
, your statement on
#politicslive
that asylum seekers are obliged to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter is wrong. There is no such requirement under either the Geneva Convention on Refugees or UK law.
Oh ffs. Coutts CEO has stepped down. This was totally unnecessary and imho wrong. Should have waited for the FCA investigation. WTF do we have regulators for if "regulation" is now going to be done by a screeching mob?
To all the trolls telling me I should apologise: are you too dim to understand "I told the truth", or is "truth" a foreign concept to you?
I will not apologise, because I have nothing to apologise for.
Nine leaders of the Catalan independence movement were jailed on Monday for sedition over their role in a failed independence bid, sparking mass protests across the region
Read more here:
The RFU's decision was made by men, not women, and it overruled the women's clubs who were perfectly happy for trans women to play in their teams and were competently managing the safeguarding issues. Women's voices have been silenced and their competence denied.
For a PM who has been a Cabinet minister in every government since 2014 to brief out "we don't understand how gilts and bonds work, it's not our job to do so" is nothing short of astonishing.
No-one in the UK has voted to withdraw from the ECHR. It was not in the 2016 referendum, and nor is it in the manifesto on which you were elected in 2019. And there is no evidence of majority suppprt for such a move. You have no electoral mandate for this whatsoever.
I'm sorry folks, but I've had to change most of the threads to "only people I follow can reply". There are just too many trolls and bots now, and the abuse I'm getting is horrible. So I'm taking steps to protect myself. I hope you understand.
Good to hear Angela Knight on
#r4today
correcting Farage's assertion that people don't have the right to a bank account. They do. What they don't have a right to is a premium account at an elite bank for rich people, however much they may think they deserve one.
Ukraine is an independent sovereign state. It is free to choose its own alliances. So too are Western countries.
Ukraine's choice of friends IN NO WAY justifies or excuses Russia's decision to invade.
Russia alone is culpable for this war. Not Ukraine, and not the West.
Absolute outrage to compare British people voting Brexit to Ukrainians defending their country against a foreign invasion. The EU never dropped bombs or fired shells at British cities. It never sent tanks on to our streets. Johnson should recant and apologise to Ukraine.
This minister is 100% right. If you want the continued benefit of working from home then don’t expect a salary that was designed for staffers commuting into the office.
There is no "Coutts scandal". The Telegraph has misreported the reasons for Coutts' decision and slandered the bank. As have you. The memos released by, of all people, Nigel Farage, reveal that the reason for the closure of his account was that he had paid off his mortgage.
The Coutts' scandal involving
@Nigel_Farage
is a disgraceful scandal. Banks are not here to police free speech, what has been revealed is disturbing and undermines the very values of living in an open and free society.
Farage and his mates are now trying to bully the CEO of Coutts into resigning his job without waiting for the FCA review. They are very keen on cancelling people they don't like, aren't they?
Putin has cranked up the troll and bot farms.
#Istandwithrussia
is trending. Particularly nasty that many of the Russian trolls are masquerading as Black people to play the race card. There is definitely a racist element to this crisis, but Putin is no friend to Black people.
Oh you poor thing... pointing out, with evidence, that your company's debts far exceeded its assets for two years running, and expressing an opinion this could have been why your bank terminated the relationship, isn't defamation, dearie.
Frances for someone who claims to be finance writer, you failed basic test over checking going concern statement in accounts. Page 6
Now, please delete your highly defamatory tweet with suitable apology to me, or you will hear from Wedlake Bell, my lawyers, on Monday with pre…
1. NatWest Group has caved in, cancelling the notice on Nigel Farage's Coutts accounts and stumping up compensation
2. The NatWest Board and its Chair remain in place and Nigel Farage seems to have stopped demanding they all resign.
Anyone see a connection?
Thank you
@BBCNews
for giving me a platform to explain what I found in my review of Nigel Farage's SAR document and why perceived reputational risk is a legitimate commercial reason for terminating a customer relationship.
For a KC and a former Attorney General to describe the Human Rights Act as a "criminal rights act" is wholly unacceptable. Braverman must not only be sacked, but struck off as a lawyer.
#BravermanOut
How did they not know that if when you were child you acted in movies based on someone’s books about magic you cannot for the rest of your life disagree with any opinions held by the author of those books?
Like that’s just obvious basic common sense.
"The truth matters, Nigel. And the truth is that Coutts ended your relationship with them for legitimate commercial reasons. No-one should have to apologise for telling the truth. I certainly won’t."
My statement on Nigel Farage and Coutts.
More lies. Farage's Coutts account was not "arbitrarily terminated for legal political or personal views". It was terminated because the bank regarded him as a serious reputational risk and he didn't meet published financial criteria. He was offered a NatWest account instead.
Now that Dame Alison Rose has resigned as CEO of NatWest Bank its for the Government to decide whether the Chairman and composition of the Board are appropriate under the current circumstances and if not to effect changes to give confidence to the public that bank accounts will…
@APompliano
@elonmusk
Less than 40% of bitcoin mining uses renewable energy. 75% of bitcoin miners use *some* renewable energy.
Please tell the truth, Pomp.
You did some teaching as a doctoral candidate at Cambridge, and some teaching as a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard. But you have never held a university teaching post or done any significant academic research. You didn't even complete your doctorate. Universities are not schools.
So if I am reading this right, the Barclay brothers are promoting Boris as "the only person who can save us", but Murdoch wants to dump him in favour of Gove. Media oligarchs fighting for control of government. And the battlefield, unusually, is the broadsheets, not the tabloids.
You were not de-banked. Your account was closed because you didn't meet published financial criteria and you were insanely risky to their reputation - which you have just proved.
You've got an exceedingly swelled head, thinking you should have a personal reply from the CEO.
It was only a matter of time before Peter Flavel, Coutts CEO, stood down.
The ultimate responsibility for the dossier de-banking me for my political views lies with him.
I even wrote to Mr Flavel twice before going public and didn’t receive an acknowledgment.
1) Nigel Farage's ability to bank has not been restricted
2) His Coutts account was not closed because of his "lawful political opinions", but because he posed a reputational risk to the bank and wasn't earning them any money
3) 95% of people don't qualify for Coutts accounts
Restricting someone's ability to bank based on their lawful political opinions has no place in a civilised and free society.
If it happened to Farage, it could happen to you.
Freedom of speech is not a negotiable plus - it's essential to how our democracy functions.
I need this to be more widely known. The BBC is wrong to treat people they've brought in as subject matter experts as protagonists in a highly-charged debate.
@meldrew21
@KirstyWark
I was originally invited as a subject expert. I was meant to explain the issues from a banking perspective, and then they were going to have a debate about the politics of it between two other people. Then they got Farage and suddenly I became his protagonist.
“I confidently predict the FCA will look at this and say ‘Nothing to look at here’”
“it is reasonable that law abiding citizens can be de-banked and become non-people?”
Banking analyst Frances Coppola and Nigel Farage dispute Coutts approach
3) The Balfour Declaration did not "give" Palestine to the Jews or create a Jewish state. The British Government had no power to do any such thing. The Declaration merely said the British Government would use its best endeavours to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.
We cannot allow banks to essentially cancel people based on their views. I am prepared to change the law to ensure a proper right to access banking services. My thoughts for
@ConHome
:
I have made no such accusation, Richard. Withdraw this allegation or you will find yourself the subject of a defamation suit.
I suggest you look up the definition of the term "insolvency" in the context of a balance sheet analysis. This might help.
.
Frances,
Please confirm which lawyers you are using.
You have accused me as a director of trading insolvently, which is totally incorrect, as the accounts clearly show.
You have shown no contrition nor apology, instead sought to make additional capital out of your comments.…
So by denying Palestinians' right of return and rejecting the authority of the United Nations, Lipman destroyed the entire legal basis for the existence of the State of Israel. What an absolute genius she is.
I suppose the British had to discover how bad hard Brexit really is in order to understand why being in the single market and customs union is a good idea.
BREAKING: Dame Alison Rose has resigned, having admitted selectively leaking confidential information about Nigel Farage's finances to the BBC, and creating the impression that the ex-UKIP leader was de-banked for commercial, rather than political reasons.
“The power of the populist is, somehow, to turn utter entitlement into victimhood.”
@maitlis
on Nigel Farage using his Coutts bank account closure to provoke a culture war.
Coming to
@GlobalPlayer
Need to say this again: despite his repeated claims, Nigel Farage was never "debanked", and nor did NatWest Group ever threaten to "debank" him. The Group downgraded him from a premier service to a standard one.
Chancellor asks
@TheFCA
to investigate extent of political discrimination in the provision of banking which he says is already illegal That is true thanks to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Both attached.
Ministers & civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy” under new definition of extremism 👇🏼
Timothy Evans was hanged for two murders he did not commit. The perpetrator was later found to be John Christie, who had testified against Evans.
This is why we no longer have the death penalty. And that is as it should be.
@Kangaskhan6
@BareLeft
I'm not suggesting 'every murderer' face the death penalty, not at all. I'm posing the hypothesis that it be reserved for the most heinous crimes where guilt is as assured as it can be - Brady, Huntley, Shipman, etc
Coutts CEO has no reason to resign. The bank did not "bully" Farage out of an account, it closed his account when it failed to meet published financial criteria. There is nothing to look at here.
Why is Coutts CEO Peter Flavel still in the job?
No apology and no explanation.
Who else has been bullied out of an account? How many have been forced out?
No answers.
Sack him.
There's an outbreak of bots and trolls spreading risible lies.
The NatWest Board did not approve the closure of Farage's account. The Coutts Wealth Committee did. And the dossier shows they did so for legitimate commercial reasons.
@Frances_Coppola
When a bank loses £850m in share value in a day due to their self inflicted ideological stupidity, approved by the entire board basically out of political spite, I think any normal person would expect that board to go.
This is the moment in the
#Newsnight
debate when Nigel Farage admitted Coutts told him it was closing his account because he was no longer borrowing from them.
@AnaKasparian
I'm a woman. I don't have a uterus, I don't menstruate, and I have never been able to give birth naturally. How dare you take for granted that "woman" necessarily means any of these things. Use language properly, please.
Quite remarkable that it didn't appear to occur to anyone that leaving the EEA would mean losing access to Norwegian and Icelandic fishing waters, and that neither country has any particular reason to offer the UK concessions.
The death penalty is not lawful in the UK. Even if it were to be reintroduced, it could not be applied retrospectively. So there is nothing to debate. Your piece is nothing but empty clickbait.
‘According to Staunton, Badenoch did not apologise for the manner in which he discovered his fate… and said: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this.”’
@olivershah
‘Post Office boss: I was told to stall compensation to help Tories’
I've also discovered there's now a whole industry desperately trying to discredit me as a banking expert because I dared to disagree with Nigel Farage.
And if the UN is "about as useful as the Eurovision Song Contest", and its resolutions can therefore be ignored, does that not invalidate both the 1947 Resolution that authorised the partition of Palestine and the preceding League of Nations mandate authorising a Jewish homeland?
Those calling for Simon Jack to lose his job: don't be ridiculous. Reporting information from trusted senior sources is a journalist's job, not a sacking offence.
Angela Merkel is one of the least likely people I could think of to want to make anyone crawl over broken glass. The brexit fantasists are projecting again.
Daniel Hannan was a chairman of Vote Leave during the referendum.
That campaign promised people MORE public money for the NHS.
He went on to lead a group that is calling for American firms to buy parts of the NHS.
And now he's on the UK Board of Trade.
DO YOU FEEL CONNED YET?
In other words, the very existence of the State of Israel fundamentally relies on the two things whose authority Lipman denies, namely the right of return and the United Nations.
My unpopular opinion (well, perhaps popular in some circles): the President of El Salvador's decision to adopt BTC as an alternative to the USD for transactions in his country is actually quite sensible. 1/
“I’m not attacking you, I’m just asking a simple question.”
@krishgm
asks an Israeli spokesman whether the government will apologise to the families of seven people killed in a
@WCKitchen
aid convoy, amid reports of repeated strikes on aid agencies.
The accounts filed with Companies House reveal that Reform Party UK's debts far exceeded its assets in both 2020 and 2021. This would imho be sufficient reason for Metro Bank to terminate the relationship.
@francesweetman
Frances, you have met me. You know that I am tall and have a big nose. My profile in silhouette is similar to the one in this image that you say is a "male head". Are you alleging that I am male?
I am stunned by the sheer illogicality of an immigration policy that admits high-skill immigrants and bans low-skill ones. Why does Govt assume that the British workforce has an unlimited supply of low-skilled people? That is a hefty indictment of British training & education.
Brexit is a nostalgia project. It's all about restoring the "good old days" when Britain ruled the the world and everyone lived and worked in little towns and villages and shopped at the corner shop. The world the oldies think they remember from their childhoods.
Unless Nigel Farage's personal wealth is sufficient for him to maintain a balance of over £2,263,416 in his current and savings accounts, he does not come anywhere near meeting the qualifying conditions for a Coutts accounts without considerable personal borrowing.
We now have blatant attacks on the rule of law on both sides of the Pond. Trump threatening to "overhaul the DoJ" if he is elected. Braverman saying lawyers representing refugees should be jailed.
@actiontiff
How much did the beef joint cost originally?
How much were your energy costs for cooking this meal?
How much did it cost you to equip your kitchen?
Why is
@MarcusRashford
's colour relevant?
The BBC's apology was a shameful example of spineless political arse-covering.
NatWest did not apologise for closing the account. It remains closed.
It's telling that Farage has said NOT A WORD about the Newsnight debate. He can't. I told the truth and he knows it.
@Frances_Coppola
@ClaireJHartnell
No they don't. The BBC & Nat West would NOT have apologised if they did. You're in denial.
They said "this was not on political grounds"
The reasoning in the minutes was absolutely political.
I'm not "hypnotised by Farage" - he's just as likely to mess up as not, but the >
What is being reported on MSM:
- Nigel Farage's account was closed because of his political views
- The CEO apologised for closing his account
Neither of these is true.
Nige is now calling for the board of
@theFCA
to be sacked because it didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. Why do we have to listen to this man's tantrums?
Summary: "You are fully entitled to your opinion, but if you publish any facts at all about people or organisations you dislike, we will take them as driven by malicious intent."
Yesterday morning, my brother and I sat with our father as he left this world forever.
Yesterday evening, my daughter and I shared a meal and a bottle of wine, then watched a film together.
There is always life after death. And families are eternal.
Goodnight.
Why do I have to put up with this? I don't work for the BBC. I don't have a "cushy job for life". I don't spout the BBC's line. I explained the facts. And unlike the BBC, I stand by what I said.
@Frances_Coppola
The problem with people like you is that you never apologise, you never reflect on where you went wrong. Yet because you spout the shite the BBC wants, you have a cushy job for life. You made a complete prat of yourself and we ALL saw it.
There will be both Israeli and Palestinian children in desperate need of gender affirming healthcare this evening, who are not getting their girl or boy hormones.
The international community must come together to make sure that bollock chopping is still available in war zones.
Nigel is spinning again. The accounts were never closed. The bank merely gave notice to Farage that they intended to close them. The "exit plan" said they would give 6 months' notice.
@grange_hillel
@Politic56721677
@Frances_Coppola
Interesting that several media outlets are now reporting this as the account being re-instated.
However the quote form Farage himself is:
"The new CEO of Coutts, Mo Syed,... is now the boss and he has written to me to say I can keep both my personal and my business accounts."