Would a German takeover of BT be so bad?

To the Mansion House, on an unbearably humid evening, for the Lord Mayor’s annual ‘Financial and Professional Services’ dinner. It’s a big night for the City, with the formal unveiling of reforms designed to channel pension money into unlisted equities, creating by 2030 a £50 billion pool of capital for high-growth UK companies that might otherwise list in New York or sell themselves elsewhere. Simplified London listing rules, favourable to founder-entrepreneurs, will be another part of a wider reform package, much of which has been foreshadowed in this column over recent months.

But what a way to put out a major policy announcement. ‘No wonder the tech kids don’t want to list here,’ remarked a fellow hack at the naughty end of the table, gesturing to the packed hall of (predominantly) perspiring middle-aged white men being served by young black catering staff. As for the quality of speeches, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt made such dull work of a text already widely spun that I longed for Kwasi Kwarteng to burst through the double doors disguised as a Just Stop Oil protestor.