Financial Services Bill

There is a great deal in that. Certainly in the early stages, when the shadow Chancellor first came up with his idea of getting rid of the FSA and spoke in hostile tones about it, he adopted a minatory posture towards all and sundry in the City and elsewhere. On that, I agree with my right hon. Friend. However, today he seemed to be emollience personified and there was nobody in the world more reasonable than the shadow Chancellor. He was bending over backwards to accommodate everybody; he was negotiating with everybody and consulting everybody; his offices were full of representatives from the City; the FSA was coming in and the insurance industries and bankers were coming in—and, of course, the Governor of the Bank of England had a special place there. The shadow Chancellor would have us believe that the whole financial world agrees with him, and he quoted one or two examples of people moving tentatively, although not fully, in that direction. The situation is anything but, of course.