Simon English: Antonio Horta Osorio speaks for all of us, so let’s hope he’s right

By common consent, at least in the world of banking, Lloyds Banking Group is a clear proxy for the UK economy.

With 30 million customers and fingers in nearly all of our pies, if it is doing well, then so should most of the rest of us be, goes the thinking.

So what did we learn today from the bank’s results about the rest of us?

That we’re tottering along okay, just about fending off disaster, mostly optimistic about the future, and totally unable to shrug off yesterday’s mistakes.

PPI is the scandal that won’t die. Another £700 million on the bill today takes Lloyds total for this extraordinarily costly affair to £18.2 billion.

A learned colleague notes that this is equivalent to the entire GDP of Estonia, but somehow that doesn’t seem to do it justice. That makes it look smaller than it really is.

It is more than £300 per person in the UK. Or 91 times what Manchester City has spent on defenders so far this summer. Still not right, but you get my gist.

Lloyds has, presumably, now stopped saying that this is the last, final, ultimate increase in PPI provision since this problem plainly remains out of its control.

That (and a few other minor misdemeanours such as overcharging already distressed mortgage customers aside), Lloyds looks in reasonable shape.

Profits are going the right way, and the chance for the divi to truly race away from here looks good.

Chief executive Antonio Horta Osorio insists that both his bank and the UK economy remain resilient to any shocks.

If consumer debt is up, he insists, that’s a sign that the consumer can cope with more debt, not a sign that he or she is over-borrowing.

Given the size of Lloyds, Horta Osorio has at his fingertips more real economic data than perhaps anyone in Britain — including the Governor of the Bank of England.

By his telling, there isn’t a debt bubble, house prices are just fine and things are getting better rather than worse. We hope he is right.

ITV’s sex drama

Does ITV treat its women staff well, pay them properly?

Chairman Sir Peter Bazalgette insisted so yesterday in fulsome tones. “Gender issues” are something “we take… very, very seriously”… it is “something we work on very hard”, he said loftily.

The broadcaster got into a tizz over whether it is better than the BBC on this issue, complaining about suggestions made here that it must be. So: ITV cares about women at work. But can’t be sure that it does so more than the BBC.

That’s a bold statement of principle for you right there.