Martin Vander Weyer

‘I have a horrible feeling he has enough gimmicks to be the wild card… I mean, he could go on to win it.’ We’re just beginning to come to turns with the dangerous tendency of today’s voters to reject the conventional and competent in favour of unqualified, undignified, unlovable candidates who conduct themselves like showmen and clowns. I speak of course of former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls on Strictly, and I quote from waspish judge Craig Revel Horwood.

For Mark Carney to have returned to-Canada after five years as Governor, as he originally planned, rather than serving until 2021, might by now have looked like a win for his critics — so adding an extra year, up to the end of Brexit talks in 2019, is a sidestep worthy of Strictly. Meanwhile, I was delighted to find ‘Might it be worth a flutter on Governor Rees-Mogg?’, the punchline of my last item on this subject (22 October), bouncing around the global media.

As the 30th anniversary of Big Bang loomed, I found myself back at the scene of my City demise. Ebbgate House — headquarters of BZW, the investment banking arm of Barclays where I worked until one fateful morning in 1992 — fell deservedly to the wrecking ball a decade ago. It was replaced by Riverbank House, and there I was last week, hovering above where my desk used to be, talking about ‘why no one listens to the City any more’ and reliving the P45 moment that released me into the happier world of journalism. Personal echoes apart, this was also a moment to revisit Big Bang, the Thatcherite reforms launched on 27 October 1986 that allowed banks such as Barclays to buy stock-exchange firms, create BZW and its ilk, and compete against Wall Street’s giants.

Will Mark Carney go or stay? On appointment in 2013, he indicated he would leave the Bank of England and return to Canada in 2018 (‘We’ll be back in five,’ his wife tweeted), but he has an option to stay a further three years. Theresa May’s criticism of QE in her conference speech was interpreted as an attack, but she and Philip Hammond have subsequently been described as ‘supportive’. Admirers say continuity would be a good thing through the pre-Brexit period, especially if inflation picks up, while detractors such as Nigel Lawson (‘He’s behaved disgracefully’) long to see the back of him.

I wrote last month that a key test of Brexit success will be whether Nissan is still making cars here in ten years’ time. A few days later, Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn issued a warning that ‘If I need to make an investment in the next few months and I can’t wait until the end of Brexit, then I have to make a deal with the UK government.’ The investment decision he referred to — expected by Christmas, which means before Brexit talks even begin — is whether to build the next Qashqai model at Sunderland or in France, to avoid tariffs on exports when we leave the single market. And the deal he was fishing for was a promise of compensation if tariffs are imposed. What’s at stake is huge: the wider UK automotive sector supports 800,000 jobs.

This column comes from Puerto Pollensa in Majorca, my favourite off-season watering-hole. The hotel is full of elderly Daily Mail readers intent on making their gin-and-tonics last longer as they contemplate the news from home. Brexit is highly likely to mean ‘hard Brexit’ — departure without residual access to the single market or meaningful new trade deals with the EU or anyone else — and HM Treasury thinks that could cost £66 billion a year in tax revenues. The FTSE’s new all-time intra-day high was consoling for those with a portfolio tucked away, but an uptick in bond yields suggests equities are due for a sharp sell-off soon. And petrol prices are about to jump thanks to the weak pound and a belated Opec move to limit production.

‘I rang and said can I have a council house, I’ve nowhere to go, an’ the bloke said no you can’t, we need them all for t’Romanians,’ was a remark offered by a fellow patient, known to me as Fat Lad, when I was hospitalised three years ago. ‘I’m telling you, I’m the biggest Ukip supporter there is…’ he went on, illuminating how — unnoticed by the comfortable classes — a shortage of social and affordable housing was helping to fuel the national mood that eventually led to the Leave vote. Belatedly, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has had a Damascene moment: ‘Tackling the housing shortage is not about political expediency,’ he declares. ‘It is a moral duty.

'Can anyone seriously imagine the German state and corporate establishment allowing the bank that bears their country’s name to go down?’ I asked in February, adding rather bravely, ‘Of course they won’t.’ And that, I fear, makes my next question, ‘Am I about to eat my hat?’ Shares in Deutsche Bank have plunged to their lowest level since 1992 as the US Department of Justice seeks to impose a $14 billion fine relating to Deutsche’s issuance of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 crisis, and rumours say Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out a state bailout. Deutsche boss John Cryan says the bank hasn’t asked for her help to fight its US battle and is in compliance with all its capital ratios, both of which may be true.

Hinkley Point — for all its flaws and the whiffs of suspicion around its Chinese investors — has finally received Downing Street’s blessing. Meanwhile, ministers hold the party line that High Speed 2 will go ahead according to plan, backed by news that the project has already bought £2 billion worth of land; and investors hunt for shares in the construction sector that might benefit from the multi-billion-pound infrastructure spree widely expected in Chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn statement. But still no decision on a new airport runway for London — the one piece of digger work, short of tunnelling under the Atlantic, that would signal Britain’s raging post-Brexit appetite for global business.

Hinkley Point — for all its flaws and the whiffs of suspicion around its Chinese investors — has finally received Downing Street’s blessing. Meanwhile, ministers hold the party line that High Speed 2 will go ahead according to plan, backed by news that the project has already bought £2 billion worth of land; and investors hunt for shares in the construction sector that might benefit from the multi-billion-pound infrastructure spree widely expected in Chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn statement. But still no decision on a new airport runway for London — the one piece of digger work, short of tunnelling under the Atlantic, that would signal Britain’s raging post-Brexit appetite for global business.

In the post-Brexit landscape whose shape was barely glimpsed in G20 discussions at Hangzhou, one thing is clear: soon we’ll have to stop waffling about trade deals and start pushing British products the world wants to buy. One such is education, at our universities, independent schools and English-language colleges — an export sector calculated in 2011 by the now defunct Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to be worth £17.5 billion. Not only does this sector attract foreign exchange, plug funding gaps for cash-strapped universities and support thousands of jobs, it also lays the ground for future relationships with students who return home to embark on business careers.