Comment by alborzb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alborzb | Hacker News Reader

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>> recently a famous politician in the UK got de-banked partly out of his political views

As a person in the UK, who is fairly in touch with the media industry. This is such a non-story. I just want to do my bit to fight disinformation with the real information here :

That FORMER (not current) politician is a TV personality, who works for a TV channel called GB News [1]

GB News is directly managed by Paul Marshall, in a personal capacity (who also operates a hedge fund). [2]

That hedge fund took out short positions against the bank (which means they made bets that the banks share price would fall). In fact they had the largest bet ever against the bank, since records began of short positions. [3]

Coutts is a private bank that is exclusively for high net worth individuals [4]

The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank (which is £1million or $1.3million in dollars) [5]

The TV channel then made a big splash by announcing that this man's account got closed due to his political positons, rather than the reality of his financial withdrawals. Which cause the banks share price to drop due to the negative media attention. This made a large profit for the hedge fund that had bet against the bank and was managed by the person who owns the TV channel that ran this story [6]

[1] https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-government-...

[2] https://www.gbnews.com/about-us/our-investors

[3] https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4111886/hedge-fund-mar...

[4] https://www.coutts.com/private-banking.html

[5] https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/revealed-the-real...

[6] https://www.thenational.scot/news/23683277.nigel-farage-row-...

The TV personality withdraw money from his Coutts account and fell below the minimum balance requirements needed for an account with this private bank

From what I've seen on the news, the account balance issue was an excuse that Coutts came up with later, after it was revealed that he had his account closed because "his views do not align with ours" or something similar. There was a leaked email or memo or something with that information.

Edit:

According to what the Telegraph says are minutes of a meeting of Coutts' wealth reputational risk committee held on November 17 2022, they read: "The committee did not think continuing to bank NF [Nigel Farage] was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation. "This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose." He also said there was a perception that he was regarded as "racist and xenophobic", which he called an "appalling slur".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66240298

One important aspect though was that Coutts is part of a larger banking group, who offered Mr Farrage a chance to open an account with Netwest, another bank in the group.

So it’s not that they refused him service totally and he was unable to obtain a bank account anywhere, which is in my opinion an important distinction.

If you want to see the intentional spread of misinformation and intricate conspiracy theories with political motives, you might want to check a mirror.

Exactly how does your "real information" stand up to:

> BBC News

> TV, radio and online, 4 July 2023

> We reported that the former UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s bank account had been closed by Coutts because he fell below the financial threshold needed for an account. This information came from a senior source familiar with the matter after Mr Farage had put the story about his banking arrangements into the public domain, saying that the bank had political motives in closing his account.

> Mr Farage’s view was reflected in all our reporting and he has been widely interviewed across the BBC throughout. Since this original coverage, Nigel Farage submitted a subject access request to Coutts bank and obtained a report from the bank's reputational risk committee. While it mentioned commercial considerations, the document also said the committee did not think continuing to have Mr Farage as a client was "compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation".

> Because of this evidence, we have since changed the headline and the copy on the original online article about his bank account being shut for falling below the wealth limit to reflect that the claim came from a source and added an update to recognise the story had changed. We acknowledge that the information we reported - that Coutts’ decision on Mr Farage’s account did not involve considerations about his political views - turned out not to be accurate and have apologised to Mr Farage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarificat...

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People like you are why they report falsehoods initially, and as quietly as possible issue corrections later. The news of the correction and the resignation of the director of the bank has no effect on your desire to defend political censorship to the death.

But please talk more about that evil right wing news outlet that had no need to issue an apology to anyone, as if the messenger is more important than the facts.

>> People like you

>> But please talk more about that evil right wing news outlet

What on earth are you on about? "people like me" "evil right wing news" ?!

I have not referenced anything as either right or left wing. Nor did I mention anything of mine or anyone else's political leanings.

I cited my theory including several sources that show it to be factual that this television personality's employers gained several millions by causing the bank's share price to drop.

Yet you seem to be deploying personal attacks rather than finding fault with my core assumptions.

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