“What in the name of Gadd was that?” I asked the chairman of the insignificantly-sized investment company Kermitted Asset Management – my voice an octave higher than I care to admit – as we perched awkwardly on the chairs we had been sitting in just a few seconds earlier. “I only caught a glimpse but, I swear, the last time I saw something like that it was exploding out of John Hurt’s stomach.”
“What – Hermy?” the chairman replied, trying to sound casual. “Adair met him at one of those little get-togethers the asset management poster-animals have from time to time and invited him back. To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t recognise him – I thought Hermy had been scuttling across your Portfolio Adviser website for months now.” “Hang … on,” I stammered as the truth dawned.
“You’re telling me you invited the Jupiter hermit crab home on a playdate with your terrier-sized pet hamster turned personal bodyguard?” “In a manner of speaking,” the chairman nodded. “You know how enthusiastic Adair gets so I couldn’t swear Hermy had a lot of say in the matter. But just look at them now – they’re having a marvellous time together.”
“Are they?” I replied, unconvinced, as one clearly nervous crustacean scuttled beneath us with one giant rodent in hot pursuit. “Anyway, I thought Adair wasn’t allowed to have friends over after what happened to the Investec zebra – how long was that thing in therapy afterwards? That said, good on the little chap – Hermy has a surprising turn of pace.”
“He’s certainly moving a lot quicker than he does in those ads,” the chairman agreed. “I have no doubt his handlers know exactly what they’re doing but I confess to finding him a little … er …” “Me too,” I shuddered. “Still, changing the subject completely to something that gives me the willies and become more unsettling the more I look at it, what’s your take on what we might loosely call our government’s energy ‘policy’?”
“Well, you’d have to agree even hugging Hermy would be preferable to the looming prospect of a nationwide gas shortage,” the chairman sighed. “It just feels way too ironic that the perils of pursuing a net-zero decarbonisation policy wholly at the expense of energy security, diversity of supply and economic stewardship could come sharply into focus just as the country’s hosting the COP26 summit.
“I know it can be helpful to learn by example but presumably the UK government didn’t deliberately plan to show the world precisely how not to execute an energy policy?” “To be fair,” I began, as I quickly identified the nearest place to dive for cover, “the prime minister has publicly acknowledged the inherent complexity of pursuing a decarbonisation agenda. What was it – something about it not being easy being green?”
“And that’s another thing,” the chairman exploded on cue. “What sort of charlatan tries to burnish their ESG credentials through an opportunistic association with a much-loved institution such as the Muppets?” “Only the most shameless kind,” I deadpanned. “It truly makes you wonder the lengths some people will go to jump aboard the ESG bandwagon.”
“If the gas runs out, there may be no bandwagon left,” the chairman sighed again. “Just look how the last two runs at ESG investing were derailed – by the tech bubble scuppering all our good work on ethical funds in the late 1990s and by the great financial crash kiboshing the SRI push of the mid-2000s. Historically, it only takes a crisis for investors to take their eye off the ESG ball – and can you imagine if this one has some ESG roots?”
We sat in silence for a while, watching Adair play catch – literally – with Hermy, who had prudently retreated inside his shell. “So what are your plans if the lights go out?” I asked eventually. “Oh, don’t worry about us,” the chairman shrugged. “All we have to do here is let the hamster loose on a treadmill hooked up to our generator and we’re completely self-sufficient. Come to think of it, dangle Hermy from a string just in front of Adair and, if the call came from Number 10, I reckon we’d have enough power to host COP26 ourselves.”
