Don’t feel sorry for the City

Here are four connected facts. First, on Monday, Standard Life – one of Britain’s most respected investment institutions – cut the value of its payouts to 2.3 million pension savers by 15 per cent. Second, some 30,000 people have lost their jobs in the City of London this winter – including Alex, the cartoon archetype invented by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, who was given the heave-ho by ‘Megabank’ a couple of weeks ago. Third, also on Monday, Gordon Brown gave a rambling speech to the Social Market Foundation in praise of his own economic policies, in the midst of which he made a single, brief reference to investors, claiming to understand their concerns. And fourth, Britain’s yacht-building industry reported a boom in sales last year, particularly for £1 million-plus motor cruisers; the London Boat Show last month was expected to generate another £400 million of sales, and the biggest buyers were expected to be City executives with bonuses to burn.