Hoy a las 12.30 hora inglesa Alistair Darling, el ministro de finanzas británico, entregará al Parlamento el "pre-Budget Report". Se espera que incluya un conjunto de medidas intervencionistas "contra la banca", en un giro populista para satisfacer a las bases laboristas, que amenazará la competitividad de Londres como centro financiero internacional.
Among a raft of measures designed to clobber the better-off will be a windfall tax on banks, as well as confirmation that the top rate of income tax will rise next April to 50p and that a raft of allowances will be eliminated for anyone earning over £100,000 a year.
Other measures to target workers on higher incomes are also expected, with capital gains tax rates and inheritance tax under intense scrutiny.
Parece que los recortes drásticos de gasto público para reducir el déficit no encabezan la agenda. Alllister Heath, editor de City A.M., advierte que la "guerra contra los bancos" afectará a la ciudad entera, y por extensión al Reino Unido, no solo a "los banqueros".
London is a cluster, like Silicon Valley. The massive pool of talent and cross-fertilisation between the different industries creates increasing returns to scale, a virtuous circle where growth creates even more growth. But if one central part of the equation – the big global banks – were to gradually whittle down their operations in London, shifting staff to other locations and moving resources to Asia, everybody else will suffer too. The virtuous circle will become vicious. Commercial law firms will follow the M&A advisers through the exit doors. The hedge funds will move out. The IT guys, economists and marketing professionals will find they have less work to do, as will the property consultants. Slowly but surely, London will matter less; all of the activities that depend on a buoyant private sector, from the arts to our great food culture, will begin to suffer. Fewer skilled French and Australian professionals will want to move here.
There are other reasons why it makes no sense to laugh at the banks’ fate: the government, it seems, remains intent on pushing its Tobin tax plans, which would hit every financial transaction and decimate London – and not just its banks. It beggars belief that a British government would ever dream of committing national suicide in such a way but such is the anti-finance mood that crippling all trading appears to have great popular support. Today’s PBR won’t actually enforce the idea, of course, but it will rattle the global decision makers who decide whether or not to create more jobs in London.
Actualización: The Times informa en directo sobre el "pre-Budget Report".
