Excelente artículo de Allister Heath en City A.M. Empieza con una cita de Voltaire de 1733, cuando escribió sus cartas desde el exilio inglés:
“Go into the London Stock Exchange – a more respectable place than many a court – and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men”, Voltaire wrote. “Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker. On leaving…some go to the Synagogue and others for a drink, this one goes to be baptised in a great bath in the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost …and everybody is happy.”
Continúa describiendo el carácter comercial y multicultural de la City:
To 18th century French readers, such wonderful, peaceful trade-based multiculturalism was unbelievably eccentric; yet the City of London, at its best, was always an open, outward-looking marketplace. Its renaissance, especially after Big Bang in 1988, went hand in hand with an influx of foreign capital and talent. Investment banks, hedge funds, private equity and consultancies have the most diverse staff in their London offices; others, such as the accountancy and law firms, are gradually catching up.
Take Barclays Capital: of its 12-strong executive committee, around 10 are overseas-born, hailing from the US, France, Italy, Canada and Australia. There are more overseas-born bosses in FTSE 100 boardrooms than ever before – we are tapping the world’s best and brightest. In fact, the entire UK financial services industry relies on foreign-born employees: of the 3.969m employed in banking, finance, insurance and other sub-sectors, 761,000 were born overseas, says the Office for National Statistics. That proportion – 16 per cent – is higher than in any other sector.
Segui leyendo. Así es la City de Londres y espero que siga siéndolo, si el gobierno no la ahoga con sus impuestos.
