Recently it has been revealed that London Mayor, Boris Johnson, argued that the recent introduction of a 50% tax on all Bank bonuses over (I think) £20,000 would ”super-penalise” the city. However, today the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, George Osbourne, said “I’m not going to oppose it; I’m going to see whether it works in practice and we’ll judge it by its results.” and then said, Boris “is not opposed to this windfall tax, actually, as far as I understand it,”. Doesn’t this show a little lack of coherace from two of the most prominent figures of the Conservative Party? Also, then Osbourne (or boy george, watever take your fancy) then went onto say, “If people would have taken my advice, we would be in a better place than we are today,”, which is coming from someone who prior to last year’s financial crisis was saying the government was too regulatory on the banks, despite the recession being caused by too little regulation and over-speculation.
Max
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/boris-bashes-darling/
Boris speaks out to protect London’s economy.
Other pieces on Boris’s policies on the same website http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/
”Whilst he is angry with banks, which have been bailed out by the taxpayer, but continue to pay out huge bonuses he believes that these hasty, unilateral measures, which undermine London’s competitiveness, are not the answer .”
I say we call their bluff, if the bankers who brought the economy to its knees want to leave the country to go elsewhere, I say let them.
The last thing the government should be doing is giving in to pressure from the banks, for not only does it send out completely the wrong message both to the people and to the banks themselves, but backtracking is virtually politically impossible on this issue.
Boris also doesn’t exactly have evidence for his claim: “…the chairman of his (Boris’) own economic agency, Harvey McGrath, who was questioned by members of the London assembly on the issue.
“I am not aware of any specific financial institution that has declared that it will relocate from London,” McGrath said.” McGrath rather implies Boris’ claim was based on individuals who had the option to move asking to be considered for such a move. That’s unlikely as a result of the bonus tax as the banks are covering the vast majority of the costs that would otherwise be applied to bankers: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/caffc078-fc97-11de-bc51-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=Late_headline1/NL/UKJan2010/Vanilla_bns_uk/0/&nclick_check=1 In any case, the importance of the banking sector is exaggerated and I wouldn’t worry too much about them leaving for: “Finance, including the City, insurance and high street banks, forms 7.9% of the UK’s GDP, compared with manufacturing at 14.7% and property services at 16.5%. Added together, hotels, catering and telecoms account for nearly the same share of GDP as finance.”
Boris is in a minority within his own party too, with the Conservative Party having no plans to scrap the bonus tax whatsoever and not viewing removing the 50p income tax rate as a policy priority.
The London Mayor is quite out of touch. The irresponsibility of the banks could have easily destroyed our economy. Now the taxpayers are spending all their time paying off the City’s gambling debts on money the banks didn’t even have and Boris wants virtually the same form of deregulated situation back that caused the economic crisis? That can only be described as utterly insane.
http://cyberboris.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/boris-levels-with-george/
Here is another post on the topic of bankers, this time relating to Boris and George Osborne.
Chris surely Boris is not saying he is against regulation? He is merely against the fiscal measures listed in the Boris Bashes Darling piece.