Immigration Karina Robinson Immigration Karina Robinson

Speech at the Mansion House

Welcome all to the Annual Banquet of the WCIB and welcome to the Mansion House, the Heart of the City.

The Mansion House reminds me of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, built for Agostino Chigi, a banker who was treasurer to the Papal States in 1510 and a patron of great artists. He entertained his clients – Popes, Ambassadors, men of power – in such style that he was known as ‘the Magnificent’.

I should hope we have entertained you in such style today, that you too will say the International Bankers are Magnificent!

At one banquet, in an extravagant gesture, the silver dishes were thrown into the Tiber River after use. I therefore ask you to pick up any silver left on your tables and we shall throw it into the Thames. Or perhaps not!

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Financial catherine phelps Financial catherine phelps

How can the City recover its political capital?

The good news? The financial sector is no longer enemy number one. Its place has been taken by our fumbling politicians. The bad news? The City has not regained its political capital.

Post the financial crisis the City, meaning financial and professional services in the UK, lost the trust of the nation. A perfectly understandable and justifiable result, but one that must change because of the harm that is being done to our economy when the City has no advocates beyond its own members.

As the country grapples with Brexit, assembly lines of MPs appear on television defending the UK’s manufacturing base. Not one talks about the need to defend the City, despite it being responsible for over 13.5% of tax revenues – that’s a lot of hospitals, infrastructure and schools. It is also responsible for around 2.3m jobs – jobs that aren’t just in the Square Mile, or London and the South East, but also in Liverpool, Glasgow and Bournemouth.

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