Evil Knievil: Time to buy

My family have known the Engles for seventy years ever since my father taught Sir George Engle QC, later First Parliamentary Counsel (i.e. he was ic drafting all Westminster’s statutes) at Oxford. My father taught classics, moral philosophy and logic. Sir George was intellectually tough and died perhaps five years ago.

Last night, his daughter Vanessa broadcast on BBC2 from 9.00 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. her astonishing documentary on Michel Cohen who pulled off a breath-taking sequence of frauds in the art world totalling $55m. Monsieur Cohen now lives in much reduced circumstances in hiding in France. Apparently, the extradition treaty between France and the US does not cover Michel Cohen. He was a pathological gambler in stock options and this habit needed funding on a massive scale. My tip to Michel is that it is cheaper to sell the options rather than to buy them. I grant you that this advice is a bit late.

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Quite why HMG ends up forking out £600m bringing home Thomas Cook package holiday customers completely escapes me. After all, these travellers have not been assisting the balance of payments.

A Thomas Cook apologist declared that if HMG can rescue banks why not Thomas Cook. The answer of course is that banks keep a society going. Thomas Cook never did.

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So Gina Miller (and her husband Alan) wins in the Supreme Court. I know and like both of them even though I am a Brexiteer. As I type sterling stands at USD 1.24408. Time to buy, I reckon.