For the first time in the Bank of England’s 325 year history, the Chancellor has hired a recruitment firm to seek out the next Governor of the Bank of England to replace Mark Carney when his term ends in January 2020. Naturally you would expect Hammond to chose a firm that specialises in high level finance executives. Instead, he’s picked Sapphire Partners – an all-female partnered firm advised by a certain Cherie Booth that specialises in promoting women and minority candidates…

It seems strange that for the most senior job in the world’s most significant financial centre, the Chancellor has hired a firm not to seek out the most talented candidates of any gender or race based on knowledge and experience. Instead it seems he’s specifically looking to promote candidates based on their gender and race…

UPDATE: A Treasury source defends the decision to Guido: “A competitive process was used with a number of firms approached to tender these services. It was all in line with the Bank of England’s procurement policy.” It’s not the first time the Treasury have partnered with Sapphire, they were also used to hire two new members of the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee earlier this year…