End of bankers immunity and monopoly?

Posted on | November 25, 2009 | No Comments

End of B(w)ankers?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6930428.ece

A long, long time ago — two years ago to be precise — there lived some baddies with names like Adam Applegarth and Fred Goodwin, who almost destroyed the country. But that’s all history now, or rather just a “story”, as David Hare calls his new play, The Power of Yes, about the global financial meltdown.

How the bankers laughed when they went to see it at the National this week. “That’s me,” said one managing director when the actor crowed at the end: “I still have my health, wealth and wife.” They grinned when the former Lehman’s banker admitted that the employees had nicked all the Milky Ways and crisps from the canteen on their way out. But the part they liked best was when one character explained that the City had accounted for 9 per cent of the economy and generated 27 per cent of the country’s taxes.

“You see, you need us,” explained the hedge fund manager afterwards. “We’re not like coal miners, fishermen or politicians. We are indispensable. Without the City, Britain is nothing. It’s in everyone’s interests for us to succeed even if you don’t like us very much.”

Hare may think he’s articulating left-wing rage against the greedy capitalists who got us all into this mess, but for the bankers it’s back to business as usual. They pretend to be mildly contrite about the noise they are causing as they build their new underground swimming pools across London. But they’re not. They genuinely believe they are carrying out a public service by boosting the country’s coffers and rebuilding the City.

“We aren’t a drain on society, we send our children to private schools, have private GPs and health insurance and rarely use public transport,” one investment banker said. As they take out their wallets, bulging with this year’s bonus, the past two years seem like a blip.

Arrogant, complacent, yes; but they could also be wrong. We haven’t yet seen the final act of the drama, which could be nastier than anything Hare envisaged. The City of London may have survived the credit crunch, but there could yet be a final twist to the plot.

The first threat comes from Europe. While the Goldman Sachs executives have been booking the NetJet to Ibiza this summer, the French have set their sights on controlling the EU’s economic agenda. Britain can have Baroness Ashton of Upholland as foreign affairs chief, but in return the French want Michel Barnier, their former Foreign Minister, overseeing the financial services portfolio. A Frenchman will not want to encourage a renaissance of the City of London. Mr Barnier, a staunch defender of French protectionism, is more likely to propose sweeping regulations to restrain those Anglo-Saxon capitalists.

Then there are the Tories. The City should be worried, very worried by a rather dishevelled man called Phillip Blond, who until recently worked at the University of Cumbria. Mr Blond, who can’t do up his top button and brush his hair on the same day, has become the Tory philosopher king. Tomorrow David Cameron will “drop in to offer words of support” as the “Red Tory” launches his new think-tank ResPublica.

Mr Blond, a Liverpudlian theo- logian, despises the City, arguing that “the great error of the last fifty years is that the Conservatives think they must believe in the free market, but the free market … destroys almost all things, traditions, family life, societies, cultures”. Communities, not capitalism, will save the world, according to Mr Blond.

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