Woke banks have short memories, says NICK FERRARI

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (Image: Getty) Fifteen years ago we bailed them out to the tune of £137billion, and as an idea of just what that amount of cash could do, it would fund the entire National Health Service for around 11 months. But with banks collapsing around the world, people in the US handing back the keys to their homes as they couldn’t make the monthly payments and the entire global banking system teetering on the edge of collapse, there truly appeared little option. We had to bail out our banks. But here we are, considerably less than the lifetime of an average mortgage later, and any ounce of gratitude from the banks who played roulette, lost big time and then begged us for help, has been shredded. Instead of courting our cash and promising to value our custom, banks and other financial organisations in this country have decided their interest should pretty much be limited to whether or not we hold any view that might be in conflict with their ultra-woke, Left-leaning, student union-style world view. A vicar was branded ‘discriminatory’ for daring to challenge his building society’s fixation with displays supporting Pride. And there was the journalist who had her account closed after she challenged the view that a woman can have a penis. Then the Free Speech Union had its PayPal account closed. No one appears safe from the propriety police. And that is surely the ultimate irony: a free speech organisation being censored in this fashion. This is a Kafkaesque-style nightmare, where people are effectively ‘cancelled’ for having the bare cheek not to subscribe to the political viewpoint, campaigning desires or arbitrary standards of the bank with which they trust their hard-earned cash. In many instances they are offered neither explanation nor appeal. This clearly violates any sense of justice and would not be permitted by any police force or any court in the land. People regularly get suspended from, or even lose their jobs for supporting unpopular causes or controversial beliefs. Now we have a growing trend where some people are not even allowed to get their hands on their own money. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said he is ‘deeply concerned’ about this practice, but that is nowhere near approaching a suitable reaction. He should be demanding all relevant bosses high tail it to Number 11 and then tell them, in no uncertain terms, this must end. There are, rightly, already legitimate grounds for banks to suspend accounts of their customers. For instance, if they believe they have been involved in criminal activity like money laundering or other nefarious activities. You may also have noted that in all the cases of cancellation, it has been views more from the Right side of politics that have been deemed out of order, rather than the Left. This is a depressingly rapidly growing trend and proves yet again that those who constantly preach tolerance are so markedly intolerant themselves. As they grabbed that bail-out cash back in 2008, banks didn’t seem to care about the politics of the individual taxpayers who stumped up the loot. Now is not the time for them to play judge, jury and executioner. Catherine Tate as Georgiana in Queen of OZ (Image: Getty) Absolute rubbish Not for a moment wishing to tread on the talented toes of my TV critic colleague David Stephenson, but can I be permitted one observation on the new BBC ‘comedy’ series Queen of Oz? This must be the most execrable dross ever served up by the Beeb and Lord knows why the talented Catherine Tate didn’t flush the script right down the loo. Remember the halcyon days of Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army? Well, if you thought BBC comedy couldn’t get any lower, this trip Down Under will prove you wrong. Biden strikes again Joe Biden , sadly still demonstrating yet again his opposition to all things British, has blocked Defence Secretary Ben Wallace from getting the Secretary General job at Nato, and in the process cleared the path for Euro no-mark Ursula von der Leyen. The one time we needed him to be asleep on the job. Captain Sir Tim Moore (Image: Getty) Captain Tim Moore’s reputation tanks When all the cash was finally counted, it was revealed that Captain Sir Tom Moore had raised more than £38million for the NHS. When he started out on his first lap of the garden, his goal was to raise just £1,000. He became a national hero and was feted internationally, with his story being covered from San Francisco to Sydney. How he would react to his family being ordered to demolish an annexe to their home after they illegally added a pool spa and changing rooms to their offices will never be known. But given the Charity Commission had already launched a formal investigation into decisions that could have made a lot of money for a private company owned by his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, and blocked the charity from paying Mrs Ingram-Moore a £100,000 salary as it was ‘neither reasonable nor justifiable,’ it seems fair to suggest these recent events have tarnished the reputation of a truly great man. Music stars for office Thank goodness for great British music stars such as Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles. They are among the acts that have passed the £700million mark for exports for the first time in history and therefore have brought in quite a chunk of change for the Treasury. Any chance they could run the country?