This is the talk I gave to the Policy Unit in 1984 when we were advising on a potential reform of the City which became Big Bang. It was released with other surviving government papers after 30 years.I re issue it as Rachel Reeves is saying she plans a Big Bang style City reform. I don’t think so.The Reform Margaret unleashed brought in billions of new capital, new ideas, new jobs.
Once upon a time – or about a year ago, to be more precise – there lived a noble and chivalrous group of knights in a great big castle called the Stock Exchange. Now those knights had many virtues. They were very honest – at least to each other – and it was truly the case they never, never lied when executing orders. They always worked very hard and competed with each other with high spirits. And of course they loved feasting and jousting and pillaging and – well, we’d better not be too explicit.
Outside the Stock Exchange castle lived a great population of subject people and peasants. They were all forced to send their savings, the results of their labours, to the institutional barons. Now the institutional barons weren’t nearly such a jolly lot as the Stock Exchange knights. When they fought each other, they didn’t use the soft rubber lances that the Stock Exchange members always used when jousting: they used proper lances. And although they got invited to some quite good jousts and feasts, it wasn’t the same thing as the feasting and jousting and pillaging that went on in the Stock Exchange. And every time they tried to invest all the monies they’d collected from their subject peoples, they had to send them all up to the Stock Exchange castle, where they were taxed and pillaged.
The Stock Exchange knights had a very good rule which said that they were never allowed to cut their prices and taxes on all the people outside the Stock Exchange. This made everybody inside the Stock Exchange very happy.
Now this country had been very badly governed for many years. But it fell under a wise ruler. A siege train of great OFT guns had long been threatening the Stock Exchange castle, because governments never like to see people feasting and jousting and enjoying themselves for too long. But the wise ruler decided to send her boldest champion over to the Stock Exchange castle and sort it all out. Now this bold man was also very wise. He decided to go forth to the castle alone and parley unarmed. But of course he kept the big siege guns loaded and trained on the castle. And when he arrived beneath the battlements, he spake thus: “Excuse me, but would you mind very much just lowering your drawbridge a little so that a few other people can get into your castle and enjoy some of the feasting and jousting? And do you think it would be at all possible if you could just lower a few of your taxes and not do quite as much pillaging?”
There was a long pause from within. And then the knights inside the castle fell to arguing amongst themselves, and one of the leaders bellowed down from the ramparts the following forthright message: “Not likely mate, we’re having a good time.” So the bold champion said: “I’m very sorry, but I do hope you’ll reconsider and perhaps you’d let me know if you could do anything to help.”
All the peasants outside became very worried, lest their bold and strong government was in cahoots with the feasting and jousting knights inside the Stock Exchange castle after all. And all the nasty peasants who wrote for the newspapers wrote lots and lots of articles saying how rotten the government was, and it was just like all other bad governments they’d ever had before. But really the bold champion had been very wise, because inside the Stock Exchange castle, all the knights fell out with each other and started to revolt.
Some of the oldest – and many wrongly thought the wisest – of the Stock Exchange knights fell to arguing along the following lines: “Those guns out there could make a big hole even in our castle strong castle walls [sic], and then it would be very difficult to go on enjoying feasting and jousting and such like with canon shot in our midst: and the institutional barons and the peasants could all swarm in.” And others started saying: “We like feasting and jousting, and in order to go on feasting and jousting we need to go on pillaging and taxing. Maybe we could do a deal with that nice bold champion who came to see us, so that we could pillage and tax almost as much as we used to, whilst everybody thought we were being well-behaved.”
So the Stock Exchange sent its most parfait knight, called Sir Nicholas, back to see the government. And he spake thus: “We have thought it through, and we think there is some merit in what you say. So we would like you to take your siege guns away. And we promise to lower our taxes and reduce our pillaging on both the peasants and the institutional barons. And then we hope that you will allow us, as long as we’re discreet, to go on feasting and jousting.”
Now the wise government thought about this, and said: “Yes, we will remove our siege guns, and we will then watch and see what happens.” And very soon it became apparent – even to some of the press and the peasants – that there was going to be a revolution after all. Every day and every night, cries of anguish and shouts of rage could be heard from the Stock Exchange castle. And all the Stock Exchange knights forgot that the government had ever suggested they change their ways, so busy were they fighting each other.
Now the government was doing to many what it had done to the Stock Exchange. And some of the great and good knights of the other Orders were worried lest the peasants got too much power. So they said: “You are disgraceful authoritarian people, giving us the freedom to choose what we should do and making us responsible for our own actions. We want to be told what we’ve got to do, just as we always have been in the past, so that we can moan about it.” They were worried in case their castles were knocked down as well. But the government pointed out that it hadn’t fired a single shot in anger at the Stock Exchange castle.
So the government was a wise government and it was unmoved. And the people became happier. The Brokers and the Jobbers lived together in fraternal enmity, always bickering and fighting and scrapping amongst themselves unless somebody from outside said it was very silly, in which case they turned around and defended each other to the death Now in the Stock Exchange castle, the knights had always been organised in two different Orders – The Order of The Brokers and The Order of The Jobbers. And one of their most important rules was the no broker could do what a jobber did, and no jobber could do what a broker did. And they lived together in fraternal enmity, always bickering and fighting and scrapping amongst themselves unless somebody from outside said it was very silly, in which case they turned around and defended each other to the death. But as soon as they realised that they couldn’t go on pillaging so much, they started fighting each other with real lances.
Now the wicked old institutional barons who’d been sitting outside in the cold for so many years saw they had a great chance. But they weren’t very bright. They thought it would be joyous to feast and joust and pillage like everybody else had always done in the Stock Exchange. So when they saw the drawbridge was coming down just a little, they decided to rush inside and buy a piece of the castle so that could join in the fun. And some of the sly old Stock Exchange knights saw they were on to a winner.
So they went to see the institutional barons and said: “You want to come inside and – well – we’re getting a little old and tired, so we’ll sell you a place inside the castle, as long as you pay us lots of money. And then we can go on feasting and jousting up to the day we die; but we promise we won’t do it in the place in the castle that we’re selling to you.”
The silly old institutional barons fell for this, and they started buying their places in the castle for the most enormous sums of money. And the Stock Exchange knights who sold out went on round-the-world cruises and could hardly stop laughing, because they had so much money that they could go on feasting forever. And some of them could even come back and become Stock Exchange knights all over again.
But there were a few people outside the castle who saw that the best thing to do was to lead the peasants. Everybody had tended to forget about the peasants because, after all, they were only there to do the work and provide the money for everybody else. But a lot of peasants were fed up with the institutional barons and the Stock Exchange knights, and they were looking for new and better ways of investing their money; and some of them wanted to be able to feast and joust like everybody else. And slowly it began to dawn on all those who were Stock Exchange knights that not only might they have to lower their drawbridge to let in foreigners and institutional barons and all the rabble they’d kept out for so many years, and let them join in; but even perhaps the peasants – who’d gone on paying for the feasting and jousting for so long – would refuse to send any money to Stock Exchange castle ever again.
The narrative of the chronicle now becomes frayed and torn. Several textual commentators have supplied different endings to the story. The one I favour is the following short, happy ending: “And so it became apparent to all the peasants that they had indeed been wisely governed. By calling off the siege, by not intervening, by asking people to do what they thought best and reasonable, and by being nice to everyone, the government had wrought a great revolution.
Some people could remember pictures of the Stock Exchange castle; some even claimed to have seen some of the last stones being carried away to make nice houses for peasants. But all agreed that it was much better to live in a world where the institutional barons now had to behave themselves and do what the peasants told them; and where the Stock Exchange knights no longer belonged to a special Order; no longer jousted and pillaged and went to too many feasts; but where the people could choose for themselves what to do with their wealth; and where the Stock Exchange market was organised like any other market for buying groceries or theatre tickets or even tickets to go and see a good old-fashioned medieval joust – just for fun, of course.
July 21, 2025
Good morning.
The Big-bang led to a lot of old British Investment companies and banks going to the wall. eg Barrings Bank. It opened us up to other companies, mostly from the USA.
The only real good thing to come out of the Big-bang was Canary Wharf as the big investment houses needed cheap office floor space, and the government needed some much regeneration of a part of London that was derelict and depressed for centuries.
But today, thanks to government greed and over regulation, places like Dubai seem as good, if not better, than Canary Wharf.
July 21, 2025
The only big bang this shower will do is when they collapse the whole economy.
Led by milibrains deindustrialising policies and Rachel from complaints tax and waste policies it won’t be an explosion but an implosion.
Better check seat belts for a turbulent ride (possibly to the IMF).
What’s the betting they insist we rejoin the EU and adopt the euro as a bailout condition. There really would be riots.
July 21, 2025
I think that’s why they’re doing it Ian.
They know the only way we’ll rejoin the EU is if we’re forced to …. and they’ll ensure we will be trapped and can never escape again if they collapse the economy and we have to ditch Sterling and adopt the Euro.
July 22, 2025
There wouldn’t be riots – why would people riot?
We have no agency now with our so-called democratic governments, so why would changing from the spineless law taker governments to the just as distant EU lawyer-civil service soup wind the majority up enough to do anything, let alone riot.
July 21, 2025
Government greed, over regulation and most of the money they rob from the productive is spend very poorly indeed or in doing net harms – HS2, net zero, net harm lockdowns and vast net harm Covid vaccines, insane energy policies, housing policies, transport policies, education policies…
I see that Ed Miliband has been lying to young school children about his bonkers energy polices – such is the way with nearly all religions lie to and indoctrinate young children while they have immature minds and many just accept it and then (worse still) perhaps go on to indoctrinate their own children in this mad religious anti-science lunacy too.
Surely this is a form of child abuse!
July 21, 2025
@Mark B – big bang was not behind the Barrings Bank collapse, it was a bank not able to cope they didn’t know how to managed.
Today it is costs and bureaucracy, meaning it is cheaper to buy & sell on the NYSE, even for the same shares. In terms of profit and loss the LSE will lose you money
July 21, 2025
Your economic understanding is much better than your story telling Sir John…..
The moral of the story is, everyone thinks they can do better than the experts who have been perfecting their trades and their security for generations, until they try it. When they eventually scale the walls and break into the castle they discover it is more difficult than they imagined, with as much fighting to survive on the inside as there is on the out.
Stand by for a wealth tax because the non expert from accounts has run out of good ideas and is now busy introducing bad ones.
July 21, 2025
There is always motivation for any action, – – here, it is how to raise more tax. Reeves is in deep trouble, expect to see more unhinged, off-piste ideas being implemented in the wild hope she’ll hit a new tax vein.
July 22, 2025
Problem is Peter, that Tax vein may well be the main one that feeds all of the other veins that are already being slowly bled dry.
Thus the body stops working as there seems no point or benefit in continuing to do so.
July 21, 2025
Interesting data on tax, the US total tax to GDP is about 25%
https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-sub-issues/global-tax-revenues/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf
Whereas in UK it’s about 35%.
July 21, 2025
It is government spending that is perhaps more important what they spend they will get back in taxes, borrowings (deferred taxes) or inflation (another tax on people) in the UK it is not far off 50%. Furthermore in the UK much of this is spent doing zero good and much is even spend doing positive damage. Things like Net Zero, net harm lockdowns, road blocking, worthless degrees often in worthless subjects, benefits for low skilled migrants often with criminal intentions, the appallingly dangerous Covid Vaccines, road blocking, subsidies for heat pumps, “renewables” and EVs, destructive OTT regulations, OTT workers rights…
July 21, 2025
Another wealth tax would be a very bad idea the taxes we have already IHT, NI, income, CT, Stamp, VAT, IPT, council, fuel duty, carbon tax, road tax… can easily take 90%+ of your wealth off you over say 20 years.
I googled David Starkey and John Redwood to see if his recent talk was on line. I did not find it but got an old Question time Starkey insults a member of the audience. Here we have Starkey and JR explaining to Rachael Reeves, then Shadow Chancellor, how increasing tax rates can decrease tax take and visa versa. Alas Reeves like most lefties was not in receive mode!
She is, it seems from the papers today, sensibly resisting a wealth tax though!
July 21, 2025
Wealth Tax will need renaming to Worker Tax ( it is aready happening by stealth, although most payers have noticed).
July 21, 2025
‘This time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires.’
July 21, 2025
@Rod Evans – so very true on many levels
July 21, 2025
Just as well I did not know at the time that all this was going on. Your metaphorical submission would have bored me to death. As an employee I decided that I was only being rewarded by a pitance of what I could earn, so I became self employed. In those days one got no help, but was envied by those not prepared to break free. Now of course they are not just envied but actively penalised lest success allows them to run their own lives. Like many others I ducked and dived and made it in the way I chose. I even left the country to enjoy a rest from big state. I found it very refreshing to be clear of the cumulative incompetence that is big state UK. It was only what I saw as personal responsibilities that dictated a return. Since returning, big state has got worse, in fact I see it as terminal. It is just a matter of how long.
All is not lost however. I have entertained myself watching Clarksons Farm which in my judgement contains all those elements that demonstrate that the genetic elements for hard work and success are still alive in the soul of the English, they just need the right incentives and leadership. It is a depiction, warts and all, of the battle for survival in life via the overcoming of the scroats and scribes that abound in english life. It is a monument to the english workman under stress, and hope for all those on the verge of surrender. The Jeremies of England and all who sail with him have earnt our support.
July 21, 2025
I applaud your last paragraph, a much needed glimmer of hope in a nation where hope seems to be fading fast.
July 21, 2025
Afraid the war on self employed people will continue as it has for the last 4 decades, politicians do not like free thinkers, people who can, and have to survive, sometimes by thinking outside of the box, and at times risking all they have (including the family home) to try and progress financially. Thus they are simply not trusted because they are difficult to control, and that is what it is all about CONTROL, hence the reason why they are constantly penalised by ever more taxation and regulation to a point where many simply give up, because the risks and effort involved to overcome all of the obstacles put in front of them by Government and HMRC are no longer worth the rewards that most gain from that effort and form of employment.
The old fashioned work ethic is now being lost in our Country, hence the reason we have so many people of working age on Benefits.
July 21, 2025
@agricola – +1
July 21, 2025
AI is all ready modelling investments, you won’t need investment bankers in the near future. You’ll only need very good coders to write the script and lots of historical data.
July 21, 2025
historical data is all well and good, but non-forecastable events like diamond, coal, rare earth mineral mining accidents, oil pipeline explosions, maritime passage blocking by accident or intention, military conflict out of the blue, Trump idiotic levies, industrial giant moving production, assassination – all can seriously disrupt values of investment in various markets.
July 21, 2025
“Past performance is no guarantee of future results” as they say. Often a good performance is a sign you are in a bubble about to pop!
July 21, 2025
Would you trust an AI investor to look after your interests? Hard enough trying to find sound investment advice without a rogue AI deciding your wealth should be destroyed.
July 21, 2025
@Stephen Reay – the big flaw with AI it is simply a large database of what people have previously done, its data is arrived at by scraping the web for ‘posted’ information, it doesn’t think, so anything operating in a none conforming way has it beaten.
We can learn from history, unless you’re in Parliament, but we needn’t follow it.
July 21, 2025
The only Big Bang Two-Tier and his anti-British Student Union Marxist Government is going to deliver is the explosion that is currently smouldering in Epping.
July 21, 2025
When we saw the walls coming down and the peasants keeping so much more of their own money, and becoming happy in their own homes and even owning a ‘holiday home in Marbella’, we came home!
But Mr Kinnock became very very cross, because as a peasant he had worked out that the way out of the gulag was to represent the gulag, but if the gulag no longer existed, what was he and Mrs K going to do for partying and frivoling?
We homecoming Peasants brought the ‘white heat of technology’ and many many other wonderful and prosperous ideas home with us that we had taken when the ‘Pound in our Pocket’ was certainly less than the PM had said it would be after he devalued it – yes – the Government in those days even decided what the value of the £ would be because they thought the Peasants, buying and selling in the Market would not get it right.
We were happy and the wise Lady was undefeated because all the Peasants loved her, but the Knights in that one Order that remained untouched, the gulag-representers, were afraid that she would take their feasting and partying and privilege from them. So they lied and plotted and manipulated and got rid of her and we Peasants have become poorer and less and less happy every year.
The very unhappy, poor and frightened peasants are now plotting their own assault on the walls of the last Castle, which is just a Palace because there is not even a drawbridge. They plan their own Big Bang and it will be nothing like the polite and gentile and clever Big Bang that the wise Lady and her loyal Knights brought about.
July 21, 2025
Mr and Mrs K found going to do partying and frivoling was fine if moving to the right controlling state.
July 21, 2025
Well said Lynn. We too left to work overseas fed up of unions,3 day week etc. We owned property abroad and thanks to Maggies removing of exchange controls we had rental properties in the UK. We spent all our excess cash in the UK because we believed in the rule of law and property ownership. Not anymore with the lying thieving uniparty bleeding us dry. Oh to be 30 years younger.
July 21, 2025
@Lynn Atkinson – a lovely response. Socialism needs and must keep shoring up the them and us of Society or they disappear
July 21, 2025
Sir John
Do you think anyone in this government or the previous crowds we have seen this century could comprehend or understand the so-called ‘Big Bang’?
In simple terms not one of them understands what happens when you free up people, allow them to take responsibility for themselves, release them from the cage of on constrained dictatorship, the rule from the centre. They thrive, they contribute and a whole Nation benefit.
The Socialist WEF dogma, with nudging from the EU has indoctrinated people to believe only the Politburo, the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats should run things day-to-day, hands-on. Only people that have never had to run things and achieve a tomorrow, in their highfalutin, self-indulgent minds think they are best placed to direct and receive the plaudits.
A bit like the Magna Carta a fabulous document creating freedoms and responsibility, then the day after it was introduced it was salami sliced away, destroyed by power hungry ‘numpties’ on personal ego trips. Now just as with the ‘Big Bang’ it’s just a foot note in history.
July 21, 2025
I do remember the ‘Big Bang’ many friends from my school days came to enjoy the money it released into the World. I remember one in particular; he was running ahead of the crowd as he was involved in the US when the New York Stock Exchange was released. So, when it became the LSE’s turn, he was enticed back to the UK with golden hallo, enough to make his return into the pages of the FT. He remains grounded like all those of that era.
July 21, 2025
I hear vice president vance is likely to holiday in the UK.
since it is only him and mr musk forcing the UK to have some remaining minimal level of free speech he should be welcomed.
I’d love to show him around, I hope he gets to see some of the things I see.
July 21, 2025
@iain gill – agreed. I do believe there is no one in Parliament that even understands the concept. More likely the fear the people challenging thier ego
July 21, 2025
He should spend a day with Jeremy at Diddly Squat and an evening at the Farmers Dog. Meet some real people.
July 22, 2025
Ian
Perhaps he will visit Clarkson’s Pub, that would be an interesting conversation to listen to.
July 21, 2025
An interesting story, but very different times. Today’s problem is the result of several years of incompetent government from the “so-called conservatives,” not following conservative values, and not listening to your advice. That has allowed this appalling Labour Government to come to power, and they have done more damage in 12 months than the previous governments did in 14 years.( Sorry to look back in light of yesterday’s article )
If the PM and Chancellor can’t see the damage they have done, and both seem blissfully unaware, things will only get worse. Can the UK survive four more years of these low-calibre, unintelligent Ministers? They are living in cloud cuckoo land, and have no idea of how stupid they are!
July 21, 2025
@Keith from Leeds – I have come to the conclusion it is part of the plan how else could they achieve a Marxist State, if they don’t force outthe achievers to leave
July 21, 2025
The LSE’s losses against the NYSE has more to do with government control freaky mission creep. They, the Government, have ensured it is cheaper, easier and less cumbersome for the World to use the NYSE to buy and sell stocks than it is the LSE.
It is as if they want the LSE under their personal control, so they can be washed in personal reflected glory.
These are the people running the NHS, hands on with our energy prices, NetZero. the economy and so on, so trying to suggest they comprehend business, the economy and growth, means anyone with that notion needs to be ‘committed'(to an asylum that is). They have proven they don’t, they destroy not build.
July 21, 2025
Sir John
The phases we should see as a warning that our personal future is being trashed, ‘keep you safe’, ‘protect you’.
Another high paid jobs-for-the-boys’ Quango is to be created. ‘A new water ombudsman will be given legal powers to intervene if customers are overcharged.’ – to protect. Labour’s plans for a “root and branch reform” – to keep you safe.
Be afraid very afraid people they are coming for you! If it happens (water zsar) it will include extra State control of your personal life so that they can control outcomes and stop consumer abuse. It will always be the consumer in the wrong, much in the same way it is the consumer at fault for wanting to see a doctor, or needing to go into Hospital. The Government of the inexperienced, advised by equally inexperienced ‘talking-heads’ that ensures that there is no such thing a service. It is only about personal ego, for them and for today to demonstrate power. Tomorrow? Who cares
These are the same people that talk of lifting red tape and bureaucracy, when at every stage, every day they do the opposite. Every day they prove over and over it is about them – not you, not the country.
The ‘City Big bang’ pull the other one!
July 21, 2025
The vital difference between now and 1984 (interesting date, that!), is that we do not have a Government that by any stretch of the imagination, could be described as ‘Wise’. Neither do we have the sort of change in the competitive business situation, with the arrival of massive competition from across the Atlantic, and the Far East, that made inevitable the end of our single capacity system (brokers dealing with outside clients, and jobbers providing a market place), all carried out by partnerships with unlimited liability. The last point in particular, meant that it was just not possible to finance businesses of a size that could compete on more than a domestic stage. The outside competition was already operating with dual capacity, and the new regime proposed to get round this with internal divisions in businesses (Chinese Walls), and greatly increased regulation.
It is worth remembering that despite the cries of ‘Rip off’, the single capacity system had been put in place over a century earlier to provide protection for clients, such that the people who were advising them were prevented from having a position in the securities they were recommending.
So in 1984, the change that was needed in procedures and attitudes, really was fundamental. At the present time though, the need for ‘Big bang’ style change just is not there, and what we have is an incompetent Chancellor trying to make routine updating of the system appear dramatic.
July 21, 2025
A thank you for your work on Big Bang! Without this the City which is a huge engine of revenue for the UK would have not achieved the importance it obtained. We would all be much poorer without your contribution. You fable of the stock exchange was a bullseye – I was a the marketing director in the 1990s.
July 21, 2025
I started working in the City shortly after Big Bang. First thing I was asked ‘do you like working with animals’.
The new bit was pretty vigorous and vicious, the old bit I could not believe how old fashioned and sleepy it was.
A little later I touched upon water privatisation. Those old hands in the water industry were very canny operators and saw the new buyers as ideal partners to make out like bandits. The regulator was largely irrelevant for years to ensure HMG could flog off the waters and unload the future costs. The Treasury didn’t care, just needed the money.
Unsurprisingly parliament (supposed to be the regulator’s boss) stayed asleep on the job. No incentive to evolve the regulators, nothing but trouble if you did.
Now whoopeee we are to have a new regulator. An excellent way of kicking all problems down the road another decade. Which is all you can do if you have no money. The more it changes the more it stays the same.
July 21, 2025
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/20/h_1b_job_lottery/
is worth a read. the US is starting to revise its equivalent of intra company transfer visas which are used by the Indian outsourcers to decimate jobs for British computer science grads. shame the British political class have consistently refused to look at this.
July 21, 2025
60 criminals were illicitly shipped, into the UK yesterday on the 20th July from France……
July 21, 2025
Why do we encourage these criminals with free accomodation in 4 star hotels (now also houses), free health care, free mobile phones, £40/week pocket money, free clothing, free entertainment, free travel, free legal fees and the freedom to roam our streets (even outside schools) and take black market jobs undercutting our indigenous population? And why do we offer all this when the French do not despite also being members of the ECHR?
July 21, 2025
Dear Sir John,
Much of your fable rings true except that it ignores the computerization that enabled the Big Bang. And those “barons” (actually English earls) were soon dispossessed by an army of invading dukes.
The big winners were the wholesale finance industry itself, which has expanded rapidly, and The Treasury, which has garnered wholly disproportionate levels of tax from the financial services sector (one reason for the huge deficits after the crash). They have a symbiotic relationship that makes The Treasury much keener to support the City than any other part of the economy, regardless of any social consequences.
Both sides also share a disdain bordering on contempt for the losers: retail investors and the rest of British business.
Wider share ownership, as you know, was booming as a result of privatization, but in a few years retail investors owning company shares directly have become almost an endangered species. Many face three tiers of fees – from ISA umbrella companies or brokers, fund managers and custodians, as well as higher tax than speculators.
Business now serves the much more powerful City firms, rather than vice-versa. So serious long-term entrepreneurs such as Sir James Dyson and Sir Jim Ratcliffe generally avoid the stock market, whose rules are often hostile, unless they want to cash in. The City is brilliant at many things but, crucially, London is poor at one of its three main functions, raising permanent new risk capital. No wonder stock market listings are becoming thinner year by year.
July 21, 2025
How do I get to the Barbican from Manchester? Good things in the city!
July 21, 2025
What a treat. I thoroughly enjoyed the witty analogies. A small addendum is that we know subsequently the grateful peasants voted for their wise ruler in huge numbers and a happy bond was formed.
July 22, 2025
The city (financial institutions and support infrastructure and businesses) and exchequer certainly benefited from the big bang.
But what about the rest of the country and the longer term consequences… yes you, the government, get a nice bung when some whiz kid engineers a M&A, aka foreign takeover, but what of the jobs and suppliers when the manufacturing etc is off-shored.
Then, after the jobs and supply contracts have vapourized, what happens to the juicy tax revenue especially when the new whiz kids start playing with internal transfers and the like.
Reply Yes the whole country benefited. City/ docklands building boom,big expansion of telecoms investment , large surge in tax revenues to improve public services, big increase in investment into UK infrastructure
July 22, 2025
The whole country has not benefited, the country is more than the City, more than Docklands.
Any concern of value outside the city has been off-shored or driven into the ground along with jobs and investments.
A boom in concrete and residential barrack/dormitories is not a benefit if our commerce and communities are wiped out. Calling new settlements “towns” is a sick joke when you compare with traditional towns of the same size – no-one can have civic pride over a supermarket.
Public services are crumbling – try getting access to a GP, try spotting a policeman on a beat, or even patrol cars.
Towns are crumbling – disused shops and premises boarded up that aren’t being turned into flats for newcomers.
Outside of Wokingham town centre roads are neglected, weed ridden and there is rubbish everywhere.
Increased tax revenues are wasted and are of no benefit.
Insufficient infrastructure investment for the government sponsored immigration.
For an economy the size of the UK is claimed to be – where has all the money gone because it isn’t being spent on the UK.