As someone with a Coutts account, maybe the least relatable aspect of the Nigel Farage story is: why would you publicise your Coutts account? I spent years developing the muscle memory to hold my thumb precisely over the brand name any time I take my card out; the telltale online banking icon is tucked safely away in the elephant’s graveyard of the fourth page of apps on my phone; I’ve never volunteered the information to a soul. But all it takes is one suspicious friend to wonder why you’re always putting your card the wrong way up when you split the bill and everyone you’ve ever met is mocking you for it within a week. That tiny stringed instrument you’re plucking at is making a horrible noise, incidentally.
Officially, Coutts requires that you have at least £1m in investments or borrowing, or £3m in savings, to bank with it. (You will remember that this was the version of the Farage story leaked to the BBC before he obtained the internal memo that revealed the reality.) This is, emphatically, not my situation, which does rather corroborate Farage’s suggestion that the bank picks and chooses when it applies those rules.
