The hot new show on Wall Street is called "Everybody Loves London". Not a week goes by without a US grandee pointing to the UK capital as the model New York should copy to stave off its demise as the premier global financial centre. Regulation, it seems, is the best received British export since the Beatles packed 55,000 fans into Shea Stadium in 1965.

This new strain of Anglophilia does, however, have an absurd side effect. The "London argument" is used by different interest groups to further their own, conflicting, aims. On one side are the New York cheerleaders (led by Michael Bloomberg, the mayor, and John Thain, stock exchange supremo). Their relationship with the Square Mile is akin to the attitude displayed by men towards the actor Jude Law when talking to their wives/girlfriends - they profess to hate him for his looks but, secretly, they would love to be him.