And talking about Standard Chartered's recent troubles and the lone-wolf regulator who came out on Monday and trashed the bank, Bloomberg reports that Johnson says: 'But you can’t help wondering whether all this beating up of British banks and bankers is starting to shade into protectionism', he wrote. 'And you can’t help thinking it might actually be at least partly motivated by jealousy of London’s financial sector - a simple desire to knock a rival center'.
Referring to the now-famous comment allegedly said by a senior Standard Chartered executive ('You f.cking Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians ?), Johnson continues: 'I disapprove of the language, of course. But I have to say - and I speak as the proud possessor of an American passport - that there seems to be something fine and sound about the underlying sentiment'.
And The Financial Times reports that Mark Field, MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, said: 'The challenge for the UK is to maintain confidence in the City by vigorously rooting out bad practice and practitioners, without encouraging a momentum to build in favour of those who seek to present London as a fundamentally flawed jurisdiction'.
Finally, The New York Post reports that Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told Reuters: 'I think all the UK authorities would ask is that the various regulatory bodies that are investigating the particular case try to work together and refrain from making too many public statements until the investigation is complete'.
The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
Hubris: How HBOS Wrecked the Best Bank in Britain
