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Georgia McGraw's avatar

Great writing, very helpful. I've not actually come across the term "decoupling" before, but it seems familiar to me in the form of two concepts:

1. Being ethically consistent and fair is desirable even when it's personally unpalatable

2. You can separate the "art" from the "artist".

I've noticed the second one in particular has become not just passé, but used as evidence of normal failing in recent years. "You can't like that song, the singer did/said/thought X". It's all very worrying, to put it mildly.

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Thomas Prosser's avatar

Thanks Georgia - very kind of you :-)

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Georgia McGraw's avatar

*moral failing, not "normal failing"

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Helen Dale's avatar

With the Farage/Coutts story I was always willing to exercise caution before taking "sides", not because I disbelieved Farage but because I've acted for PEPs and the AML checks are INSANE. And remember I retired from full-time practice in 2016--it's only become worse since then.

But as soon as Farage disclosed the results of his Subject Access Request & it became clear he'd been debanked for his political views (and that the Coutts dossier on him had been compiled by a bunch of diversity hires who would misspell "cat"), I started to get properly annoyed.

This was made worse when--in the SAME WEEK--my partner & I were shunted into "premier banking" ourselves without being asked--on the strength of holding a single NatWest product!

I note Starmer's reaction was exactly right--but then, he's a lawyer. We have to "high decouple" every day.

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Thomas Prosser's avatar

I wish all the liberal Twitter lawyers were so good at decoupling :-S

Hope you got your issues with NatWest sorted!

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Helen Dale's avatar

My partner wrote a spiky email setting out our concerns (and wondering at NatWest's timing!). We pointed out that we only have a single product with NatWest, and quite properly wanted to know how they'd worked out we were eligible for "premier banking" (and Coutts, for that matter).

"Did this involve assessing our social media activity?" was one question we asked. Obviously banks can look up property registers, or search for each of us individually on the Companies' House website.

Premier banking/being invited to bank with Coutts was traditionally a compliment on one's ability to keep one's financial affairs in order -- and also a very British way to indicate poshness without bragging. Since the Farage business, this is no longer the case. We don't know where we stand.

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Alistair Penbroke's avatar

Was it exactly right? It seems he and Labour in general were very reluctant to condemn what happened even after fully confirmed.

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Ethan Macintosh's avatar

Great article, just subscribed!

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Thomas Prosser's avatar

Thanks Ethan, just subscribed to yours :-)

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Ethan Macintosh's avatar

Thanks so much!

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Spencer's avatar

The “liberal” elites are leftists, not liberals.

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Thomas Prosser's avatar

Yes, we're stretching the concept of liberalism!

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Mike Hind's avatar

Thanks for introducing this concept. I'll add it to the list of things that make me despair of post-Twitter civic society.

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Jul 29, 2023
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Thomas Prosser's avatar

Thanks for the comment and that's an interesting case in the US; of course, some cases are difficult and there must be a balance.

But in this case? UK law is clear; firms can't discriminate against customers/workers on the basis of their political views.

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Jul 29, 2023
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Thomas Prosser's avatar

Yet banking is a quasi-public utility. In a modern society, one can't live without a bank account. Not sure it's the same as throwing someone off a website...

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