Keeping them busy at North Colonnade — it’s time for a Trouser Authority

Oh, look. In response to widespread lack of public request, the people at North Colonnade have found something new to regulate. A sequence of count-down advertisements — only so many days to go — have been preparing us for the joys of general insurance regulation, which comes into force on Friday. If you are in the business and your application form has not gone in by then, you are (as the ads remind you) committing a criminal offence, so there. What business? Well, insuring things: selling insurance, advising on it, arranging it, being an agent for it or helping with the paperwork. Even if it is only a marginal part of your business, or something you do in your spare time, you’re caught. In its waterside home, the Financial Services Authority will need to add another colonnade, cantilevered out over the West India Dock. Already it has to accommodate the regulators of mortgages, and the building must be bulging.