Alistair Darling says the output of the City of London is “absolutely critical”. The chancellor is spot on.

China’s economy inspires awe owing to its industrial muscle, but the British economy is still almost as large as China’s. Our strength comes from the services sector, enabling goods to be designed, built, financed, transported and sold. We are especially good at business services, whose growth since 1992 has been stunning. Then, the Office for National Statistics says, the sector accounted for just under a quarter of the economy. By 2004, it accounted for a third. The share of manufacturing dropped from 21 per cent to 14 per cent over the same period.