Tell Sid

Bankers can keep their bonuses and we’ll have a bonfire of financial regulations! Was Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves only six years old when the great financial crash of 2008/9 happened? Labour’s sucking up to the City is now becoming obscene, there’s even been suggestions of tax cuts for the wealthy, but I know you can’t trust everything you read on click bait. The problem here is that the hints aren’t out of kilter with the direction of travel.

Who’s behind Labour’s revolutionary new approach as outlined in its document Financing Growth: Labour’s Plan for Financial Services just published?  We have Sir Douglas Flint, who in June 2006, in recognition to his services to the finance industry, was appointed a CBE. Flint became group chairman of HSBC at the end of 2010 In 2014, he criticised banking regulations as "disproportionate", "unwarranted  risk aversion [which] threatens to restrict access to the formal financial system to many who could benefit from it"’ (Wikipedia entry); we’ve got David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group with twenty years’ experience working at Goldman Sachs; there’s Dame Elizabeth Corley, chair of Schroders (with a sideline writing crime fiction); there’s Nigel Higgins, Group chair of Barclays who spent 36 years at Rothschilds; then there’s Sir John Kingman, a highly integrated member of the financial establishment with much experience handling the mess said establishment makes and is a member of the Trilateral Commission; then there’s Anne Glover, a venture capitalist, a non-exec director of the Bank of England and another CBE; of course Sir Ron Kalifa is here too, another knight of finance he too is a non-exec director of the Bank of England and was commissioned by the Tories to conduct a review of fintech, for which Rishi Sunak was duly grateful; Charles Randell was a former chair of the Financial Conduct Authority and is yet another CBE; and look! There’s Baroness Shriti Vadera, a Gordon Brown favourite, formerly a minister and now chair of Prudential, and a real mover and shaker (sometimes criticised for her tough style). Bringing up the rear, so to speak is a mere OBE, Susan Allen, CEO of the Yorkshire Building Society, formerly of Barclays and Santander.

So! When Starmer and Reeves say Labour represents change they really mean it! I would have had more optimism on that front if we had seen one or two trade union voices here, or the likes of Lord Prem Sikka, and don’t we have any local Thomas Pikettys or Joseph Stiglitzs? Dream on. Labour’s aiming for such a humungous change, it has to be handled very smoothly if it’s to work, in fact it’ll be so seamless I doubt many people will even notice the ‘change’ and in four or five years’ voters may choose something else entirely, maybe as indicated in the article I highlighted yesterday.

The document does express support for getting more women onto company boards and support for the mutual sector, both things which Labour in the past hasn’t actually done a great deal about aside from talk. Much of the rest is couched in terms of supporting continuing reviews, brushing up existing initiatives and tweaking things here and there. Most definitely not a major reform of the way the economy works. Its great vision is kind of summed up in the final paragraph: ‘Labour will look to deliver a modern ‘Tell Sid’ campaign for retail ownership to highlight the value of British people supporting British businesses.’ Well, we know what happened there.