Jeremy Hunt Sets Out Sweeping Reforms to Financial Sector

THE GUARDIAN: Chancellor says plans will ensure City ‘benefits from dynamic, proportionate regulation’

The chancellor has announced plans to reform and repeal a number of City regulations, including rules originally meant to protect the UK from another financial crisis, in order to “unlock” investment and “turbocharge” growth across the UK.

Jeremy Hunt’s package of more than 30 reforms was announced as he travelled to Edinburgh to meet a group of chief executives from banks and insurers, who the government hopes will be in a stronger position to grow and compete with international peers as a result of the deregulation drive.

The package, known as the “Edinburgh reforms”, is wide-ranging, spanning from plans to consult on a new central bank digital currency to changing tax rules for investment trusts involved in real estate, and reforming rules around short selling – where investors bet that the price of an asset will drop.

The government said it also plans to trial a new trading venue that would operate intermittently but allow companies to raise money from investors before officially floating shares on the public market. » | Kalyeena Makortoff, Banking correspondent | Friday, December 9, 2022

Yet more crap from the Tories! As if the financial sector weren’t already deregulated enough! Those regulations were put in place for a purpose! I fear that Hunt is setting us up well for another financial crisis in the not-too-distant future.

The Conservative Party has screwed up on a grand scale with Brexit. Through that catastrophic mistake, it has put this country in the slow lane re-economic growth. And now, the huge problem is being compounded with yet more mistakes.

I despair of this country! I should have fled this sinking ship several years ago. Alas, unfortunate circumstances—the death of my late partner—came in the way.

In my lifetime, British governments of whatever stripe have never been able to get the economy right. There have been some bright spots here and there, but on the whole, our economy has tanked. The pound sterling certainly has during the last century. Successive governments had a strategy. In economics, it is known as 'managed decline'. – © Mark Alexander

What to Expect from Berlin after Angela Merkel’s Return to Power
TIMES ONLINE – Analysis: For the past four years conservatives and liberals have been quietly expressing fears that Ms Merkel was a Social Democrat in sheep’s clothing, or at least in a woollen trouser suit.

Now the Chancellor has a chance to prove otherwise. The result will be a subtle change of Germany’s position in Europe.

Fuse the election manifestos of the two parties — the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats — into a single programme and you come up with a mainland European version of progressive conservatism: there is concern for social justice, a taste for financial regulation, but also a commitment to open markets, deregulation and (when market conditions permit) privatisation.

But while some of that may suggest an affinity with a possible David Cameron government, relations with the Tories are likely to remain frosty because the new German Government is firmly committed to the Lisbon treaty.

The new Berlin Administration will almost certainly see its main friend in Europe as Nicolas Sarkozy; the Social Democrats had some reservations about the French but these are not shared by the Free Democrats.

The main loser of the new government alignment could well be Turkey. The Social Democrats have been a champion of Turkish entry into the European Union for the past 11 years, first in alliance with the Greens, and latterly in Ms Merkel’s Grand Coalition.

Now the Social Democrats are in opposition and Ankara will be faced with sceptical governments in Paris, Berlin and Rome. >>> Roger Boyes | Monday, September 28, 2009