RAPID RESPONSES
Big after the Bang
Reading yesterday’s comment by Terry Smith, I can’t help but reflect that there were very few, if any, “Terry Smiths” working at the top of firms in the City before the deregulation implemented in the Big Bang. For better or for worse, the gentleman’s club of the Square Mile has been replaced by the cosmopolitan and meritocratic City. Where, OE or grammar school boy, you can make it to the top.
Michael Baker
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Lesson of St Paul’s
There is a modern parable of good intentions and unintended consequences being played at St Paul’s Cathedral. Canon Giles Fraser, a liberal and kind hearted priest, welcomed the anti-capitalism protesters to pitch camp outside the Cathedral. Unfortunately, as a result the Cathedral was advised to close its doors and Fraser has now resigned. No matter our desire to act on principle, we must also be pragmatic. This is the world the City deals with every day, but tempering principle with pragmatism is a lesson the Church has difficulty learning. For example, rather than obsessing about cuts, it would be wiser to advocate radically reduced public expenditure, lower taxes and a bonfire of regulatory constraints. After all, as in our faith, economically and metaphorically speaking, we first need to be purged of our sins in order to be resurrected to new life.
Mark Speeks,
City worker and Anglican priest