City Diary: Taxing times for Gulf Keystone over Jeremy Asher's efficient sideline

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Is this payback for the no-show of the F-35 fighter jet at this week’s Farnborough International Airshow?

My moles on the runway report that Captain Richard Ulsh, the US Marine with the difficult job of explaining why the new £70m stealth fighter has yet to appear in Britain's skies, had to pay to get in to Farnborough’s opening day yesterday, since his name had mysteriously vanished from organisers’ computer systems.

To add insult to injury, Captain Ulsh was in full dress uniform.

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Elsewhere on Day One of the Farnborough International Airshow, BAE Systems was keen to head off at the pass any suggestions of impropriety.

The defence giant yesterday put out a pre-emptive announcement that its scheduled meetings with “representatives from the investment community” will be kept strictly above the radar.

“No discussion of the current trading performance and no price-sensitive information will be provided at any such meetings,” blocked BAE.

Just for the record.

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There has been speculation that Michael Comeau, a columnist at the US financial site Minyanville Media, could be connected to Gotham City, the anti-fraud crusader that has decimated Quindell and Let’s Gowex with its damaging research notes.

The main clue? Mr Comeau, who learnt his trade under hedge fund boss Jim Cramer at the US stocktipping website TheStreet.com, runs a blog called LongShortTrader.com, the same title as the Twitter feed believed to be run by Gotham City.

Sadly, it seems this is yet another blind alley in the search to conclusively unmask “Batman”.

Mr Comeau told Diary there is “no connection”.

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Labour's plans to tax super-prime homes has a new supporter: Lord Turner, the regulator who worked 90-hour weeks during the financial crisis to sweep up the “flotsam and jetsam” of “dodgy bankers”.

“We certainly have to tax property somewhat more heavily,” the former Financial Services Authority chairman tells Management Today. “I’m paying £2,500 a year for a very nice house in Kensington, which is hardly more than somebody with a much smaller property.”

Diary presumes he was only talking about his council tax. Nonetheless, Thomas Piketty will be delighted.

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Trust Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s acerbic former spin-doctor, to make mischief.

As David Cameron put the final touches to his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, McBride took to his blog to suggest the “game-changing move” of switching George Osborne for a Chancellor who will prioritise the small businesses and ordinary families that will be the “engine of growth” in years to come.

Where can such a man of the people be found?

In the Foreign Office, apparently. McBride’s choice to deliver the Budget 2015 is … William Hague.

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harriet.dennys@telegraph.co.uk

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