Sheffield is packed with people with PhDs. The Tees Valley is home to a skilled workforce of which Britain can be proud. The City can do more to invest in talent and support entrepreneurialism in these regions. Those were some key takeaways from a Labour in the City panel discussion focusing on how the financial services industry can contribute towards a “levelling up” of Britain’s dangerously geographically lop-sided economy. Jessie…

Your business may be global – but think locally about hiring, and mentoring, young people. That was the message to City employers from Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, during a Q&A session with Labour in the City members. Rushanara’s constituency neighbours the Square Mile – it includes Spitalfields, Whitechapel and a chunk of Bishopsgate, together with East End neighbourhoods such as Stepney and Bow. She…

So Sajid Javid MP, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, has a new job advising JP Morgan. For someone whose standing as a politician went up earlier this year after resigning – and someone who will go down in history as the UK’s first Chancellor of Asian heritage – Mr Javid seems unconcerned about how this move might diminish his reputation and that of his colleagues. It is reasonable for voters to…

Labour in the City were delighted to host a virtual Q&A between the newly appointed Shadow City Minister Pat McFadden MP and more than 70 of our members.  Pat provided an insider view on how the Labour Party is changing under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the type of relationship he wants with the City and Labour’s role championing wealth creation, as well as answering questions on a range of topics. For…

Thoughts from Labour in the City Chair, Sophia Morrell, following the General Election.   We are just three weeks out from Labour’s most disastrous election result since 1935 and there have already been many thousands of words offered on what went wrong. Where I’d like to offer a perspective is on Labour’s approach to business relations and wider economic policy. Renewing both of these in tandem will be critical to…

Over lunch with the Financial Times, John McDonnell fired a warning shot over bankers’ “grotesque” bonuses this weekend, pledging a consultation on ways to limit the size of payouts. “It’s become part of the [City] culture and it is so separate and distinct and isolated from the rest of the real-world economy and that’s why people are offended by it,” said the Shadow Chancellor, who is looking at options ranging…

Labour will be on an election footing this autumn, with a well thought out strategy ready for financial reform, the Shadow Chancellor told Labour in the City’s summer reception. “Anything can happen,” said John McDonnell, referring to the imminent appointment of a new Prime Minister. He urged financial institutions to work with him to develop plans that will work effectively to reform the economy. The Shadow Chancellor and Jonathan Reynolds,…

To mark the tenth anniversary of the global financial crisis, Labour in the City launched an anthology of writing on the future of the financial services industry at a reception at London’s Guildhall with Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. More than 150 Labour in the City members heard Lord Darling offer his recollections on his role in stabilising the UK economy at the height of the banking…

A friend recently asked me for some advice on how to invest a windfall, couched in the following caveat: “I don’t want to place it with a manager. I don’t understand how they justify their fees and seeing as they call their clients ‘muppets’, I’d rather go it alone.” This brief and damning summary of financial services from an average individual shows the scale of the challenge facing the industry….

Angela Eagle, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills joined Labour in The City for a series of meetings across the Square Mile in December. She spoke at a round table chaired by LiTC, which was attended by major banks, senior representatives from crowd funding, venture capital, Business Angels, as well as accountants and the business startup community. After that Angela visited the RISE business escalator in…