That Starmer government in waiting

Interesting interview with Mick McAteer, ex-Financial Conduct Authority board member, in the Business Post. McAteer was born in Derry and the piece notes he’s of an age to remember the Civil Rights activism there. But it’s his thoughts on the contemporary that are most useful.

McAteer believes neither Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, will have any inclination to stand up to the City of London or empower regulators.

New Labour, under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were “much better than a lot when it comes to retail financial services and consumer issues.”

“I think this current group within Labour are even less ambitious and actually more friendly to the City than New Labour was,” he said.

Yikes. 

Mind you this is important too:

If he had one piece of advice for Reeves, who looks set to end up running the British Treasury after the upcoming election, it would be to give regulators and the Bank of England a mandate to align the financial system with the transition to net zero.

He believes it’s “bizarre” that the FCA has no statutory objective to help tackle the climate crisis.

“There’s no way the UK is ever going to achieve or play its full potential in the net zero transition unless the financial institutions in this country are required to change their behaviours in a meaningful way,” McAteer said.

 

By the way, this is a good observation:

“The reason why the credit union movement was so big in Derry was because quite simply, Catholics couldn’t get bank accounts. It’s as simple as that,” he said.