The Capitalist: WFH rows, Zuck’s new watch and the City’s Tesco habits revealed
WFH causes a ruckus, Zuckerberg’s eye-catching watch and the nation’s favourite meal deal: catch up on the latest City gossip in this week’s edition of The Capitalist
TULIP MANIA
The City Minister, Tulip Siddiq, is under pressure at home and abroad. While she’s referred herself to the standards commissioner regarding various property and living arrangements seemingly linked to the former government of Bangladesh, anti-corruption authorities in that country have widened their probe into their ex-PM (and Siddiq’s aunt) amid allegations of embezzlement. Siddiq insists she’s done nothing wrong, and she retains the support of the PM who earlier this week insisted he has full confidence in her. However, when given the opportunity to reiterate his support at PMQs yesterday, there was a slight softening (or hardening) of his language, with Starmer saying instead that while “the City minister has acted appropriately”, he wasn’t prepared “to give a running commentary”.
There are grumblings in the Square Mile that the situation is becoming a distraction from the minister’s important work which includes (checks notes) rooting out financial corruption. Now we just have to wait and see who reports first: the UK’s ministerial standards watchdog or the Bangladeshi sleaze squad.
WFH WTF
City AM revealed this week that staff at ad giant WPP have been ordered back to the office for four days a week with, shock horror, at least two Fridays a month. The Capitalist can’t help but notice a classic public-private divide opening up in the great (tedious) WFH debate, with thousands of civil servants voting this week to take industrial action in protest at rules requiring them to show their faces for just three days a week. Their outrage implies that many of them are currently shunning their actual place of work for at least three days out of five, probably more. Is a bit of office-based activity really too much to expect?
The PCS union, which is supporting them, is currently campaigning for a four-day working week on behalf of civil servants at the Department for the Environment. Perhaps one solution would be to grant the four-day working week but end WFH entirely, and see how many take them up on the offer.
MEAL DEAL Q4 REPORT
While the liquid lunch may be most City workers’ first choice, it is the sad supermarket sandwich (likely eaten al desko) that perhaps proves more of a regular lunchtime fixture in our routines, and indeed meal deal behemoth Tesco has the data on it. In its annual meal deal report for 2024, the grocer revealed the nation’s favourite £3.50 combo: a chicken club sandwich, a Coca-cola and, perhaps concerningly for your deskside companions, the boiled egg pot. The results signalled a shift from 2022 and 2023’s reigning trifecta – a sausage, bacon and egg triple sandwich, Mccoy’s flame grilled steak crisps and a Coca-cola – perhaps signalling a slightly more health-conscious nation.
What about in London though? While Tesco was unable to provide Square Mile-specific meal deal stats, the supermarket did reveal to The Capitalist that the capital was particularly keen on splashing out on those pesky house deposit destroyers (avocados) with both their twinpack and single offerings ranking within the top 20 products most commonly bought in London.
BANK HOLIDAY BUST-UP
Rumours of an additional bank holiday to earmark the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII were quashed this week by Number 10. We were naturally a little hacked off, but not half so much as City AM’s restaurant columnist Martin Williams, founder of M Restaurant, who tells The Capitalist he thinks the cancelled additional knees-up is “a lost opportunity”.
“An extra bank holiday would bring a much-needed boost to the hospitality sector in the face of the additional headwinds resulting from April’s punitive budget. Local Pubs and independent restaurants would have seen a great benefit,” he said. And while government officials have insisted City workers should utilise the remaining bank holidays to celebrate the anniversary rather than requesting any more, The Capitalist respectfully thinks they’re a bunch of misery gutses.
A MUSK OVER STARMER
City AM ran a poll in collaboration with Freshwater Strategy this week revealing that 72 per cent of voters think Starmer is going in the “wrong direction”. But lauded online theorists Guido Fawkes rightly highlighted another story found within the depths of the data: that Starmer is so unpopular he even trails Elon Musk. Out of 1,207 UK voters who participated in the survey, 25 per cent viewed Musk favourably compared with 22 per cent for Starmer.
RIP TO DRY JAN
A month of no drinking? The workers frequenting the pubs and restaurants of Watling Street this week, close to The Capitalist HQ, respectfully disagree. The Capitalist felt thoroughly seen on Monday lunchtime when second and third bottles of red wine were ordered to help wash down client lunches. Nothing like starting the year as you mean to go on.
ZUCK’S WATCH STEALS THE SHOW
His critics believe Zuck’s apparent U-turn on his free speech policy on Instagram and Facebook could be social media’s death knell, but Linkedin users have another concern on their mind: Zuck’s weirdly thin watch. The Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra is the world’s thinnest mechanical watch at 1.7 millimetres. Only 20 will be made and the cost increases with every purchase. One hacker spoke for the entire tech community, garnering thousands of interactions on Linkedin when he admitted: “Mark Zuckerberg released Lama 3. 3, but that’s not what caught our attention.” Cue hundreds of City workers asking where they could get theirs. Zuck also ditched his nerdcore look to opt for something more surferboy-chic. Perhaps he’s pivoting to become a social media influencer if his day job doesn’t work out. Oh, wait…