If the City falls on harder times because of the credit squeeze, how big a blow could it deal to the overall health of the economy? So wealthy are the thousands of workers in the City of London, and so skilled is the Square Mile at trumpeting its success, you would be forgiven for thinking it represented the beating heart on which the whole country depends.
Certainly its contribution to economic growth is difficult to overstate. Banking and finance has taken an ever rising share of the economy since the early 1990s. Business services account for a third of output compared with a quarter in 1992.
