London players are willing to ride out market turmoil in exchange for a prime minister in their corner.
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While Liz Truss’s economic agenda has markets worried, many in the City of London are convinced the new prime minister and her cabinet will champion the financial services industry in a way that hasn’t been the case for some time. In this week’s In The City, David Merritt and Francine Lacqua speak to reporters Katherine Griffiths and Will Shaw about Truss’s strategy for winning over finance professionals.
Gerry Grimstone, a financier and Conservative peer who once worked under Truss as an unpaid minister at the Department of International Trade, also joins to discuss his hopes for the new government. “The City traditionally has been one of the huge sources of growth in the UK and we’ve rather forgotten about that,” he says. “I think it’s going to be a big priority of hers to re-energize and reactivate that.”
Grimstone also discusses his relationship with the new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and shares his views on the importance of the City minister position and what role it plays in unlocking the industry’s potential.
Plus: Camilla Cavendish, member of the House of Lords and former head of the Downing Street policy unit under David Cameron, explains how Truss has an opportunity to reset expectations in her first weeks in office, and that if she “is smart, she will do her best to forge a new relationship with business and with foreign investors. But that does mean being open minded and not committing herself to enormous tax cuts and fiscal policies, which may prove to be mistaken.”
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