Jonathan there's clearly a lot of a lot of complex wording around the announcement but the important headline to know is
the Staley stepping down stepping down from now from the first of November. C.S. Venkatakrishnan takes
over as the CEO. I suppose the timing and the abruptness of Jes Staley's departure will be a surprise to those like you who
follow the banking sector here in the UK. But the fact that he is going may be not so because the conversation around
succession had been taking place right for a long time. Absolutely. It is definitely a shock without any doubt because
we were talking about in succession this time last year. And let's not forget his tenure hasn't been with a controversy. For
example the whistleblower scandal. So I think the market began to kind of say well maybe he will get another couple of years.
The positives I guess one. Clearly Barclays isn't going to suddenly return to the sort of darker days of OK with a retail
frenzy phrases bank over the Jenkins era. So the guy they're replacing him with 20 plus years. JP Morgan clearly the customer
focus will continue as well. So I guess we won't be worried about sort of a huge shift in strategy. But yes it is without a
shadow of a doubt a poor My guess I'm on the board as well as the regulators term and said look we are very uncomfortable with
this and they have chosen not to after what's come before. Okay. Yes it's been interesting the board is stuck with just me
and his characterization of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein for a very long time. And now this is the latest
interesting developments. We'll see what comes. Jes Staley to defend himself in this it seems.
Let me ask you about that. The man who's to take over C.S. Venkatakrishna. you mentioned there about what this tells us
then about where the bank is going to go and won't go from here Jonathan. And this is somebody with a real background in risk
management. And one of our profile piece is just in the middle of this month talked about how he when he was at JP Morgan which
Staley incidentally it was was somebody who spotted that at that that that whale to J.P. Morgan whale that a vet said that many
others didn't. What do you take away from his appointment then. Well because I say I think the key thing is that we're not
suddenly going to say I think we're going to get a massive shift in strategy because the last thing he wants in this environment
is to be refocusing heavily on UK retail. And clearly as you say he's got a very impressive track record in risk management. And
if you look at even though trading is normalizing you look at the last quarter you look at the last of the five or six
quarters the driver for Barclays was say that a completely has been the the investment banking and the trading exposure. If you
recall schedule investments was so keen to get Barclays to downsize. So safe pair of hands. By the looks of it. And ISE of
space beyond the initial shock and as I say somewhat poor reflection on the board given the whistleblower scandal etcetera
etcetera. I guess his nine lives run out. Right. Okay so that's the sort of the reflection on what this
means for the board. You mentioned the around share board and the activist investor that had been trying sets up to force
change at Barclays. Jonathan do you think that's that's completely behind them. Has that been settled. I remember when
we spoke to Jes Staley just a week or so ago about Results and My colleague Mark Cudmore asked Jes Staley about you
know how do you rub up against the U.S. Giants you know when you've got this investment bank and a European retail operation.
And he was defending that and saying that it was great to offer a counterweight to all of the big U.S. investment banks and
actually clients like that that sort of diversification of using Barclays as well. Do you think do you think that has been
settled. Yes I don't think this changes anything. I mean the last two
years have demonstrated the wisdom of that strategy whether some relationships of certain corporates will shift because of this.
That's obviously impossible to say. But as you say if you look at the replacement very safe pair of hands very good track
record for a more sort of turn out to be the preeminent investment bank globally. So I don't see any particular reason
to worry beyond the initial surprise as was the board wrong to allow this to happen.