15 Oct 2012

A year ago today the first tents started appearing outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The Occupy protest was directed at the actions of the City – the greed and corruption – that led to the current economic crisis and massive, growing financial inequality.

Since the crash of 2008, British taxpayers have shelled out an incredible £1.2 trillion on bailing out and propping up the banks. Nearly five years on, the UK’s banking scandals seem never-ending. Money laundering, interest-rate rigging, product mis-selling, IT meltdowns, tax dodging, sanctions busting – few big names remain untainted.

Despite all this, the City continues to enjoy a cosy relationship with our politicians and policymakers. Its intense lobbying alongside big business has helped rewrite corporate tax laws in its favour and push back against new regulations designed to prevent another crisis.

The Conservative Party gets over half its funding from City financiers. Behind closed doors, government ministers such as ex-banker Lord Sassoon, the Commercial Secretary, make no secret of where loyalties lie.

“This is a right of centre, market-driven government … a government with a number of bankers in its ranks, led by a Prime Minister who is proud to say he comes from a stockbroking family,” he recently said.

Spinwatch has produced this short film on lobbying by the City. ‘What The Bankers Did Next…’ takes a look at the government’s close relationship with the finance industry, some of the key players involved, and their efforts to manage public opinion and shut down debate.

We have also created a new Finance Lobbying Portal on our wiki Powerbase, which aims to guide you around some of the companies, lobbyists and think tanks involved in finance sector lobbying in the UK and Brussels.