The great City of London exodus gathers pace

Why not tax the bejesus out of the City and tighten regulation? Yes, the bankers will moan — but it’s not as if they will go abroad. The tax rate may be low in Zug, but do our pinstriped friends want to actually live there? The City’s elite have their kids in British schools, the time zone is right for business and the global phenomenon of Planet London has attractions that outweigh marginal tax rates. So let bankers moan: they’ll stay. This is, more or less, the argument that you hear from MPs on all benches as they take a carving knife to the golden goose that is the City of London. But a report from the CEBR today shows that the exodus has already started. Here are their projections of City jobs:

Given that these people will include Britain’s biggest taxpayers, George Osborne ought to be terrified at the above graph.