Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
While people decry banking bonuses, they are ignoring the real threat posed to our financial advantage by the appointment of Michael Barnier as Commissioner for the Single Market. I’m furious that for the sake of having some nonentity like Baroness Ashton appointed to a puffed-up, non-elected position mandated by a treaty that most of Europe wants to bin but is being denied the right to vote on, Labour has thrown the City of London at the mercy of the Franco-German EU axis that wants to get rid of it.
The City of London has been a barrier to French and German dominance of Europe ever since the Napoleonic Wars – once again, Labour has failed to understand the historical context of modern events and only sees the city in narrow political terms. It is, they reason, a bastion of public school wealth creation, a means through which the country’s wealth is manipulated from those who have earned it to those who control the City and its markets.
Of course, the reality is that the City is the difference – the difference between the UK and every other nation in Europe. It is a global, worldwide, established and mature marketplace that is one of the few reasons why our strained and fading nation still merits any kind of recognition on the world stage (along with Trident and our geographical locus). By handing the regulation of such an important asset over to its opponents, Gordon Brown has plunged it into a fight for competitive survival – one I’m sure it will win – right at the very time it needs to be focussing on helping Britain recover from the recession he helped to plunge us into.
He doesn’t realise the damage that threatening the health of the City could have. Company headquarters, overseas investment and many, many jobs could be at risk if the City is strangled or seen to be under attack. The problem with Brown, as we saw at PMQs today, is that he is suddenly receiving some vaguely sensible advice. But he’s too arrogant to admit it’s not his own doing and is starting to believe that he himself has aquired a Midas touch.
Not so, as I’m sure many city managers would be happy to tell him. Not that Labour listens to the City now that its political money seems to be going elsewhere.
