BORIS ‘CIRCUS’ TAKES A HIT FROM TREASURY RINGMASTER MYNERS September 3, 2009 BORIS Johnson’s visit to Brussels yesterday looks to have ruffled quite a few feathers in the austere halls of the Treasury, which is now claiming it should be hogging the glory for defending the City’s hedge funds against the EU’s evil draft directive on alternative investment fund managers. Lord Myners, the City minister, yesterday got [...]
HEATHROW TOP DOGS READY FOR A GRILLING August 18, 2009 YESTERDAY marked the first working day at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for philosopher Alain de Botton, who’s spending a week as “writer-in-residence” at the airport while scouting for fuel for a new book. The tome, “A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary”, is due to be published in September and will feature conversations with passengers, [...]
Curtain up on a global drama of a different kind August 2, 2009 IT’S August and the streets of the Square Mile feel different. Many (especially those with families) are on holiday or thinking about it, the pace of news from Westminster and Whitehall is subdued and London is filled with foreign tourists marching across the City’s Millennium Bridge or up Ludgate Hill to enjoy our history and [...]
CONDOM MAKER DUREX TO FACE A NASTY ITCH AT ANNUAL MEETING July 22, 2009 PRICKLY business is in the offing at today’s annual meeting for investors in Durex condom maker SSL International, as minor shareholder Tariq Siddiqi prepares to take a stand. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Siddiqi shot to fame back in 2005, when he persuaded David Blunkett to take up the bioscience job that eventually [...]
London lures businesses despite high tax regime July 19, 2009 WITH the news that major global corporations such as McDonald’s are planning to move their European headquarters from London to Geneva, readers may wonder how worried we should be about losing critical business mass to other European cities. Business tax is indeed one of the battlegrounds of international competitiveness. Even before the 2008 crisis we [...]
Boris Johnson warns EC on new hedge fund rules July 9, 2009 BORIS Johnson accused the European Commission (EC) of trying to “strangle” the City with its draft directive on regulation of hedge funds. The London mayor said the EC’s proposals threatened to drive alternative investment managers out of the City, where 80 per cent of Europe’s $300bn (£184bn) in hedge fund assets are managed. Private equity [...]
SLICE OF OLD-BOY STYLE HITS CITY FINE WINING AND DINING CIRCUIT July 8, 2009 NOT so long ago, City types were busy bemoaning the lack of decent restaurants on their patch. But now, just weeks after the Galvin brothers announced they were opening a new pad near Spitalfields market, I hear there’s a new eatery coming to town, courtesy of Simon Parker Bowles, former brother-in-law to Camilla, Duchess of [...]
GLAMOUR GALORE AT ASCOT’S LADIES DAY June 18, 2009 IT WAS Ladies’ Day yesterday at Royal Ascot, traditionally the most hotly-anticipated event in the calendar for dressing up to the nines. As usual, the racegoers didn’t let us down – among the extravagant hats on show were a blackbird, a giant ice-cream cone, a creation made out of 800 marshmallows, and even a headdress [...]
BORIS: ORGY OF CITY BASHING MUST STOP June 16, 2009 LONDON Mayor Boris Johnson yesterday leapt to defend the financial services industry, arguing that politicians and the City needed to be “far more vociferous” in opposing regulations dictated by the European Union. Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) annual summer lunch, Johnson said: “It is crazy that we are so passively and supinely [...]
Tube strikes are a blot on our global reputation June 14, 2009 MY HEART sank when the International Herald Tribune splashed a large photograph of London commuters struggling to get to work on its front cover. Although the article rightly complimented Londoners on their determination to keep businesses going in the face of crippling tube strikes, it made me angry. This is not the image of London [...]