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Friday 11 March 2011

But can I call you a deeply unpleasant, grasping bully and shit, "Sir" Fred? Plus an interview with someone who really does understand money

Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive "Sir" Fred Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction to stop him being identified as a banker.

He is the man whose arrogance and incompetence, together with that of the Bloated McToad and his sidekick Ed Balls we are all still paying for.

John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley told MPs about this outrageous piece of legal flummery, asking:

'Will the government have a debate or a statement on freedom of speech and whether there's one rule for the rich and one for the poor?'


Fat chance of Dave "can anyone show me Libya on a map?" Cameron and his pals doing that.

Superinjunctions stop the media from even revealing that an injunction has been obtained, but. MPs can use parliamentary privilege to avoid the legal ban. Good on you, Mr. Hemming.

Interestingly, Mr.Hemming made his money in investing. As did my long-time client Hargreaves Lansdown who the day before I flew here (I'm in New York) joined the FTSE 100 - the biggest firms by capitalisation on the Stock Exchange.

They did it the hard way. They earned it.

If you want to know what it takes to climb from a spare bedroom to an awful lot of money, I can help.

That's because I spent a fascinating hour interviewing Peter Hargreaves to tease out his secrets and his character. It has majestic views of the back of my head - plus his pungent views on matters like meetings, salesmen, who he learned from - and brand advertising (not keen).

He has written an excellent book on how he did it all called In for a penny.

Very few people have seen this interview, but you can if you come to my branding weekend at the Business School at De Montfort University, just an hour away from London.
www.draytonbird.net/branding

By the way, the day of the London bombings I did some training for Hargreaves Lansdown (don't ask how we got there!) Quite a few of their people have attended my seminars too.

They seem to have done quite well. Maybe I could help you, too.

Best,
Drayton
www.eadim.com
www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com

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