November 16, 2009

Financial Times, is not the City your home team?

Sir in “Gain the advantage” November 16 though you accept that London will still be an important centre you are certainly not cheering up what I expected would be your home team. The arguments you give of stricter global regulations and the concerns of being at the mercy of fickle finance for tax revenues have little to do with the international importance of the City.

I am not a Londoner but if I was I would be cheering the city asking it to forget Basel with all its stupid anti-risk biases and ask my banker to look into themselves and bring out again all those merchant-bank instincts and traditions that made the City great to begin with. If there was ever a moment for professional risk-taking bankers this is it!