A recent fascinating lecture, a letter to a national newspaper and Lord Browne’s recommendations on student fees makes me wonder whether my generation of baby boomers has become irredeemably selfish.
On his brother’s condemnation of the Iraq war, David Miliband turned to Harriet Harman and said: “You voted for it, why are you clapping?” Harman replied: “I’m clapping because, as you know, I’m supporting him.” This exchange says everything you need to know about the re-emergence of Stalinist type leadership.
You know victory is yours when the other side (in this case, the Financial Services Authority) quietly and surreptiously changes course.
This week, the City Grump exposes the FSA's malevolent attitude to small companies.
Every day now in every paper the discussions rage on over bank lending to SMEs. The debt junkies can’t quite believe that the era of funding their businesses through a nice and easy bank loan is over. Well, it's cold turkey time, ladies and gentleman.
The government has just published a green paper inviting views on how SMEs can access “sustainable finance”. Let’s make this a seminal moment and supply our politicians with constructive ideas on exactly that.
Last week the FTSE 100, having previously sunk below 5,000, smartly bounced six per cent to close at 5,132. How can this be?
At last, good news! The FSA is to be scrapped. Though, like most scrapped materials, it’s probably best to beware: it will likely be recycled into other bodies…
We need to find some means of interplanetary communication.
“I woke up this morning...daa da-da…my gain had gone”. Looks as if that will be the latest adaptation of that old Blues riff that we shall all be singing along to. I, of course, refer to impending CGT rises – back up to 40 per cent or even onwards to 50 per cent.
I know small companies are in my blood – and I understand big companies will always command the higher profile. But recent events, yet again, show why big is ugly and small is beautiful.
The consensual response to the global financial road crash of 2008/9 is “let’s have more regulation!”. A better approach would be to take up Mr Blair’s discarded slogan of “education, education, education”.
Peter Mandelson and the FSA, those two faithful servants of their political masters, have adopted a particularly high profile in the City recently. The City Grump, our new Real Business columnist, says bah humbug to their plans.