Kemi Badenoch can still woo the City
Just under a year ago I sat down with Kemi Badenoch to talk through her plans to win over the City. I left the interview with little to report back.
“We are looking at everything,” Badenoch told me at the time. “Our policy renewal programme is trying to get us to a place where we refresh the whole of government and the whole system. That requires a lot of work.”
A year on, it looks like all that work is finally done. Badenoch is striding back to the Square Mile this week with a spring in her step.
She has offered the City not one, not two but three policy proposals to turbocharge the banking sector: scrapping ringfencing, slashing capital requirements and axing the pesky financial ombudsman.
This is part of a transition away from the overbearing rulebook that has stifled our financial services since the 2008 crash, argues Kemi – a sentiment shared by many silver-haired, senior execs in the sector.
Some might question why it’s taken so long, but the timing is opportune. Labour launched a highly effective prawn cocktail offensive in the City ahead of the 2024 general election. Industry leaders were prepared to give Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves the benefit of the doubt, at least for their first year in office.
But successive tax grabs and more and more red tape has since soured relations. Prominent business backers, such as billionaire John Caudwell, are now openly voicing their fury at what they see as a betrayal.
So while Labour preoccupies itself with a summer-long leadership battle, and Reform’s Nigel Farage goes all-in on culture war squabbles, there is a gaping vacuum in the sensible centre of politics for Badenoch to seize. And it looks like she’s giving it a go.
A few more punchy policies like this, and Badenoch, herself a former Coutts manager, could soon have the whole City line up behind her.