Rev Flowers – a man of our times

Rev Flowers – a man of our times

You couldn’t make up the Rev Flowers story. A man who, in the words of the FT, is a modern day Falstaff who, “prefers young men to wenches and crystal meth to wine” is a product of our times.  His only talent seems to be for self-promotion.  If he’d been a few years younger (and less corpulent) he’d have been in I'm a Celebrity.

There’s a great piece on ‘Rev’ Flowers in the FT. Normally, this would be behind the paywall, but today thanks to the modern technology, I am able to reproduce it here on my blog.

The link is here, www.ft.com but may not work tomorrow!

Read on, "The furore gives a government led by upper-class Conservatives an unmissable opportunity to bash the opposition Labour party. The Co-operative Group , owner of Co-op Bank, was set up in the 19th century as a self-help organisation for workers. The mutual business, whose interests range from shopkeeping to undertaking, is intrinsic to the Labour movement.

Mr Flowers once wrote that the history of the Co-op Group “is characterised by moments when vision and ethics come together”. November 7 was not one of those moments. According to a text to a friend, published by The Mail on Sunday, the minister went to Manchester “to get wasted”. He was filmed apparently handing over money for the drugs.

The so-called “crystal Methodist”, 63, later said he was stressed. His mother, with whom he lived, had just died. Moreover, he had bungled an appearance before lawmakers investigating the finances of Co-op Bank. Gaffes included understating the lender’s asset base by £44bn.

But the notion that the clergyman was acting out of character looks shaky. A 21-year-old escort told the Daily Mail Mr Flowers paid him £650 for sex. Mr Flowers’ girth and promiscuity have prompted comparisons with Uncle Monty, a walrus-like corrupter of youth from Withnail and I, the cult movie. A sadder tale of a decent man who lost his way lurks below the surface.

Paul Flowers was born in Portsmouth in 1950 and spent four years working as a teller at NatWest Bank before training for the ministry. By the 1990s he was a Methodist pastor in the gritty Yorkshire city of Bradford. Chris Howson, an Anglican vicar, recalls: “When he was just a minister he was a very good one. He was very friendly and had the fastest-growing church in the city.” He welcomed asylum seekers, often the victims of prejudice in urban Britain. Mr Flowers was openly gay – “overcoming serious homophobia”, according to Mr Howson.

However, the burly socialist “seemed to lose interest” in his ministry. An acquaintance says his failure to become leader of the Labour group on Bradford council in 2005 left him “embittered”. He focused on ascending the hierarchy of the Co-operative movement, which he had joined in his teens.

In theory, the process was rigorously democratic. In practice, it also helped to know the right people. This played to Mr Flowers’ strength as a networker who threw lavish parties. He saw his appointment to the board of the Co-op Group in 2008 as a springboard. “He was after every gong going,” says one activist, “He was lobbying to get into the House of Lords.”

The charge against the Co-op Group is that it dished out jobs running complex businesses to people whose credentials were ideological. Critics say the Financial Services Authority, the City regulator at the time, should have barred Mr Flowers from becoming chairman of Co-op Bank in 2010.

Crucially, he had been made a non-executive director of the bank the year before, passing a lengthy “significant influence function” interview. So he got only a light grilling from the FSA on his suitability for promotion. Labour links counted in his favour, say people familiar with process. One says: “It isn’t for wallflowers to make progress inside the Co-operative movement”. Another adds: “He was seen as a credible candidate, not a bumbling fool.”

An executive who worked with Mr Flowers later, says: “He picked things up quickly but his lack of expertise was a problem.” Co-op Bank had too much on its plate. It was integrating Britannia Building Society, a lender with which it merged in 2009, bidding for 631 branches of Lloyds Bank and rejigging its IT systems.

The friendly pastor sometimes appeared “egotistical and a bit of a bully”, according to an adviser.

As regulators tightened capital requirements, Co-op Bank faltered. In February, the bank signalled the deal with Lloyds was on the rocks. Euan Sutherland, the new boss of the Co-op Group, shook his head over a recapitalisation plan approved by Mr Flowers and began easing him from the bank. The minister was also leaving the group board, after alleged expenses irregularities.

US hedge funds, bêtes noires for many Labour supporters, now control Co-op Bank. Bankers fret that retail bondholders could vote down plans for a revised refinancing, precipitating the bank’s windup.

An inquiry into Co-op Bank’s woes ordered by David Cameron, the prime minister, is set to embarrass Ed Miliband, the Labour leader. The Co-op Group bankrolls the party with £18m in loans, finances 30 of its MPs and has donated £50,000 to the office of Ed Balls, shadow chancellor.

It is another cautionary tale that politics and drugs do not mix in an age when everyone has a video camera in their pocket. Mr Flowers has a place in financial history alongside Eliot Spitzer, the former bankbusting New York attorney-general, as a man whose private life prompted public disgrace. A curious posterity for a man who once aspired only to serve the poor of Yorkshire.

www.ft.com
The writers are the City editor and the Northern correspondent of the FT