Jeremy Corbyn wants to get rid of the British Empire Medal and David Cameron wants to ditch the Human Rights Act. But I have a different nomination for the national institution most desperately in need of abolition: the FTSE 100 index. It is harming our economy by consistently underplaying the returns to be made on stock market investments and encouraging us all to invest in property instead.
The FTSE 100 is the standard proxy for the entire stock market, yet its recent record is enough to put off anyone investing in shares. Last year, it made a loss of 5 per cent. Over 10 years it has just about scraped into the black, staggering from 5800 to 6100. Another morning like this morning and it will be back to where it was a decade ago. Worse, it is still 10 per cent lower than it was on the last day of last century.
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