You will not read about this elsewhere, but an independent MP from South Wales has tabled an early day motion excoriating Royal Bank of Scotland, the decision to sack 3,700 of its staff, recent multimillion-dollar hirings of senior bankers, such as Antonio Polverino from Merrill Lynch and Bruce Van Saun, the new finance director, from Bank of New York Mellon, and calling for all failed banks to be nationalised “in the public interest”.

The motion has so far this week attracted just six signatures — MPs presumably being more concerned about their own pay packages — and looks set to fail with the state opening of Parliament.

I ring Dai Davies at his Blaenau Gwent constituency with the bad news. Davies, who sounds like the sort of bloody-minded independent we could do with more of in the House, is delighted. “That’s more than I expected. There are some socialists left. That’s good news. It gives it a little more legitimacy.” Will Davies, who describes himself as a democratic socialist and is part of the five-strong independent grouping in the Commons, be resubmitting the motion? “Oh, definitely.”

Attacks on Starbucks leave a bitter taste

What does Luke Johnson have against Starbucks? Just as “Teflon” Terry Burns is named as his successor as Channel 4 chairman, and as Starbucks today unveils a “new look” at its Conduit Street outlet, Johnson was laying into the coffee chain. At the annual M&C restaurant conference, he attacked the decision to sell instant coffee through the supermarkets as “sheer madness”. And he attacked Howard Behar, Starbucks’ former president, who “has written a terrible management book called It’s Not about the Coffee — well, it certainly isn’t now, that’s for sure.” Johnson, who has himself written extensively on management and business, does own Patisserie Valerie, which might be regarded as a rival to Starbucks.

Liffe’s profile rises in the East: Sir David Brewer

Liffe, the London financial futures market, is keen to expand into Asia, and has recruited Sir David Brewer, former Lord Mayor of London and old Asia hand, as a non-executive director.

For an earlier employer, Sir David opened insurance offices in Japan and China. He today serves as chairman of the China-Britain Business Council and president of the EU-China Business Association.

Liffe has signed up with two Chinese commodities exchanges, has 5 per cent stakes in an Indian equivalent and the National Stock Exchange of India, and hopes to construct a trading platform linking most of South-East Asia. It is actively seeking further alliances there.

Sir David is also a non-executive at Tullett Prebon’s Chinese bonds broking business, and spent much of his year as Lord Mayor in the Far East.

He took on non-executive roles at several Chinese companies quoted here on AIM, one of them during his year in office, against strict protocol but necessary because of the impending float.

Another, alas — at a property company — went horribly wrong when the chairman disappeared amid allegations of fraud.

Is there a curse on Creechurch Lane? Three years ago I wrote about the opening of a Belgian/Dutch café bar, the second outlet for the Lowlander business. This was set up by Jim Fallon, a City banker who used to run the leisure corporate finance team at HSBC. The business already had one branch in Drury Lane. Now I learn Lowlander has been restructured via a pre-pack administration and the Creechurch Lane bar is being left with the administrators. It is, I am reminded, the site of the City offshoot of Christopher’s, another Covent Garden business that tried to move into the City and failed. Is the spot jinxed? Mind you, it is on the site of an old Indian burial ground . . .

We should, perhaps, have spotted Bob Wigley’s appointment as chairman of ITV coming. As I wrote recently, the former Merrill Lynch banker has a sparkling new website which reads, viewed from some angles, like a plea for work. And it starts off: “Yell chairman Bob Wigley is embracing the digital age.” As in digital TV?

In these terrible times of pestilence, we must all take what precautions we can and pray for deliverance. City lawyer Slaughter and May has always left bowls of sweeties out for visitors in the foyer and other public areas of its office on Bunhill Row. A visitor yesterday noticed that the sweeties are now all carefully and hygienically wrapped in plastic, to prevent the foul plague infecting our highly paid lawyers and their clients.

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