Just when bankers thought they’d got past the worst of the crisis, another hammer blow descends: this week the mobile of a dealer supplying top city types fell into the long arms of the law.


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Plod used the phone’s contact list to send 668 text messages politely pointing out the downsides of cocaine.

“We hope this unusual tactic will encourage them to get help and not lose their affluent livelihoods,” said Chief Inspector Richard Hann.

The implication here is that if the livelihoods weren’t affluent, the police wouldn’t have shown such tender concern. More likely, they’d trace the addresses of the numbers and be out to “help” Dead End Dick by way of swift incarceration in one of our drug-stuffed prisons.

Worse than that, if I was a coked-up high-flyer, I think I’d read Hann’s statement as saying, “The fact I can hold down a top job means I don’t need help, but thanks for the tip on finding a new dealer.”