COLUMNISTS Elections concentrate politicians’ minds on the interests of their constituents. That explains the financial services sector’s understandable fear that its interests will be ignored or, worse, attacked for electoral advantage as Britain slouches towards a parliamentary election that can now be no more than 12 months away.
Banks and bankers will not be mentioned in any party’s campaign except as whipping boys. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, gave a flavour of this on Tuesday when he sent a “shot across the bows” of the banks with a call for them to curb bonuses. More interesting, though, was his attack on the Labour government for not standing up for the City’s interests in Europe, where continental European politicians are using the UK’s perceived weakness to press home an assault on the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.
