People and Business: Butler rebuff

MICHAEL HARDERN, the freelance butler and "carpetbagger in chief", has failed in his campaign to get elected to the boards of all seven of the largest remaining building societies, in order to force them to convert to banks.

The Chelsea Building Society said yesterday that it had rejected the nomination of Mr Hardern as a director "through lack of sufficient support".

Mr Hardern's resolution to force the society to convert, triggering "windfall" payoffs to its members, was also rejected "following legal advice on the grounds that it was invalid".

So far Mr Hardern, who also wants every citizen of the UK to be made a member of the House of Lords, has only been nominated to join the board of the Britannia Building Society. The others where he has tried and failed are the Coventry, the Leeds & Holbeck, the Portman, the Yorkshire and the Skipton.