Sir George Mathewson, 68, and Sir Peter Burt, 64, who are trying to wrest control of HBOS from Lloyds TSB, should not try to kid anyone
— their motives are as much political as fiscal.
Mathewson is a friend of Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party. He came out publicly in favour of the SNP just ahead of last year's Scottish elections. Mathewson is also on the board of Brian Souter's trains and bus
group Stagecoach, which donated £500,000 to the SNP last year.

* THE favourite internal candidate to take over from Sir Tom McKillop as chairman of RBS is John McFarlane. McKillop steps down in April. McFarlane joined the RBS board at the beginning of last month, having previously been chief executive of ANZ Bank. He also happens to be on the board of ToscaFund with Mathewson...

Such dark days with Sir Peter

WHAT of Sir Peter Burt? He tried to merge Bank of Scotland with NatWest and, when that failed, turned his attention to the Halifax. The result was a bloated bank with a massive exposure to the UK retail and housing market.

* MORE Burt. In 1999, he attempted to take Bank of Scotland into the US, via a joint venture with American TV evangelist Pat Robertson. Alas, Robertson said on his TV show that Scotland was “a rather dark land” overrun by homosexuals.

He went on: “In Europe, the big word is tolerance. Homosexuals are riding high in the media ... And in Scotland, you can't believe how strong the homosexuals are. It's just unbelievable.” Added the preacher: “It's kind of frightening to look at that great Christian history of a nation like Scotland and to see the lack of depth there today.”

The resulting furore saw Burt abandon the deal.

Daylight robbery with plastic

FURTHER banking hubris. A reader writes to say how her wallet was pinched last week in Balham, complete with Lloyds TSB card and driving licence. The thief didn't have a PIN number but that didn't stop them profiting. Within an hour, three branches in south London (Brixton, Elephant and Castle and Camberwell) were visited and a total of £570 was withdrawn over the counter, using the debit card and driving licence. She is amazed it was so easy, and asks did the cashiers bother to check the picture on the driving licence? And what ever happened to scrutinising a signature?

* COULD it be further fallout from the banking crisis, or have some of our cash-strapped banks found new ways of cutting back on rising costs? City Spy wants to know why the Citigroup name and logo no longer shine out during the hours of darkness from its corporate headquarters in Canary Wharf. It used to, and could be seen for miles, acting like a beacon for businesses in search of funding. But not any more. Next-door neighbour Barclays also seems to be taking a low-key approach these days, leaving just HSBC's sign to burn.brightly well into the early hours of the morning.

* LET'S hope City Spy reader Mike Tucker's experience with Skipton Building Society isn't repeated for the thousands of savers coming aboard with the takeover of the Scarborough. Tucker, already fretting over his Icesave deposits, was told that Skipton was unable to give him the large slug of interest it owed him on his Special Saver Account — a high-interest savings product that pays out on maturity after one year. He'd been putting up to £250 a month into the account, which matured last week.

Skipton told him a computer glitch meant it could not calculate the interest owed to him. What? “We don't know how much we owe or when you'll get paid,” he was told. Skipton now says the problem is being worked on.

New chief will earn every penny running FA

WANTED: A new chief executive for the Football Association — “£ significant six-figure salary plus bonus and benefits,” says the advertisement that has been running in the appointments sections of national newspapers. “The successful candidate must have significant proven experience in a high-profile, complex multi-stakeholder environment and it is unlikely that anyone without a track record of running a substantial business or organisation will have the necessary experience to take on this role.” The job specification adds that “the chief executive will report to the chairman and is accountable to the Board”. Outgoing FA chief Brian Barwick, who is leaving earlier than expected, knows all about reporting to the chairman. Ex-Labour apparatchik Lord Triesman, the newish chairman of the FA, quickly showed who was boss in a power struggle with Barwick.

Airlines shares are fogbound

THREE cheers for Evolution Securities' Nick Cunningham, who has finally defined what analysts are good for. Looking at British Airways, he says his analysis is riddled by doubts — “heroic assumptions”, he calls them — on fuel prices, exchange rates, passenger volumes, the number of business class passengers, the pricing of its fares, what external news might hit the share price and when any recovery in the airline industry might happen. After all that, he is punting that BA is an “add” as it may make a small profit in the next two years, though he concedes: “The forecasts have to be regarded as intrinsically unreliable”.

* WILL Michael O'Leary be flying back into the winner's enclosure at the Cheltenham Festival next March? The rehabilitation of his Gold Cup winner War of Attrition continued with a decent win at Thurles last week, and the nine-ye ar-old could go to Haydock shortly for his first run this side of the Irish Sea since the Ryanair boss won the 2006 Gold Cup at the home of jump racing. O'Leary tells City Spy nothing faster or slower than good-to-soft ground is what his fella is looking for.

* WE'RE always hearing about how tough life is for hedge funds, with GLG adding to the gloom yesterday. But there are still some mega-winners out there. Just look at Jim Chanos, the jowly short-selling tycoon whose Ursus fund is up 53% in the year so far. Not hard to make money short-selling these days? Perhaps, but even his long-short fund, Kynikos International, is doing rather well, up 11.16% through to the end of October.

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