Duncan Smith’s anger is understandable in some regards, but he should be careful what he wishes for; sparking another run on the bank is presumably not what he had in mind, for it might only necessitate another government bailout.
It is hard to imagine anything quite like the Farage affair happening at JP Morgan Chase, whose combative and outspoken boss, Jamie Dimon, is the very antithesis of the cancel culture which seems to have permeated NatWest and its subsidiaries.
Nor would it ever have happened in the good old days of Captain Mainwaring style, customer facing, branch banking. The touchy-feely “inclusive” culture that Alison Rose, the now departed NatWest chief executive, sought to create at NatWest seemed wholly to forget that half the country voted for Brexit.
For them, Farage is more hero than villain. Political judgements are not for banks, or their staff, to make.
NatWest has done itself massive reputational damage by allowing itself to be played by Farage in this way. Serious mistakes were made. Rose no doubt fully deserved her defenestration.
Yet the manner of her departure, on the direct instructions of Andrew Griffith, the City minister, speaks to the same concerns over political interference as those that have made the entire European banking sector “uninvestable”.
Farage has done more to undermine today’s Tory party as a sensibly minded, centre right political movement than anyone else in Britain today. Yet the Conservative Party leadership remains completely beholden to their nemesis, so much so that they recently hosted him at their own annual conference in Manchester.
It was silly of the board to have defended Rose; she plainly had to go after her breach of client confidentiality rules, however innocent she thinks her remarks might have been.
But whatever the rights and wrongs of it all, the fact that the board had its hand forced by a Government more motivated by its desire to appease discontents on the Right than any financial consideration gives you all the reason you need as an investor to give banks like NatWest as wide a berth as possible.
What other commercial interests might be casually surrendered for supposed political gain? NatWest is still 40pc owned by the taxpayer, but, frankly, it might as well be wholly nationalised for all the difference it makes.
