Why is London’s mayor still trapped in the fatal cycle of 2016’s ‘Remainer’? asks ALEX BRUMMER

One hopes that the Lord Mayor of London will beat the drum for the City. There are fears that current incumbent Michael Mainelli is trapped in some kind of Remainer doom loop.

He tells news agency Reuters that “Brexit was a disaster” that cost the city 40,000 jobs.

It suggests Dublin has gained 10,000 jobs and other beneficiaries include Milan, Paris and Amsterdam.

This is not exactly the message of hope that the Government sought to send around the world when it welcomed the big names in business and finance to the Guildhall earlier this week.

Mainelli’s home calculations differ from those of consultants at audit firm EY, which has been tracking Square Mile jobs since Brexit. It estimated 7,000 job opportunities in 2022.

The latest ‘Global City’ report by HM Treasury and the City of London described the Square Mile as an ‘engine room’ driving UK growth and employing more than 1.1 million people in financial services. throughout the country.

If professional services such as law and accounting are included, the figure rises to 2.5 million. It is entirely possible that jobs would disappear as a result of Brexit. Banks had to establish European outlets for regulatory reasons.

But JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and the like – with their imposing offices – seem as committed to the City as ever.

The mayor fails to recognize that for every job that has moved, there are new ones at fintech startups. Britain is leading an online revolution.

The biggest danger for the City is not Brexit but the threat of taxes on pensions and wealth creation in the Budget.

safe houses

When he was a schoolboy growing up on a farm, a contractor eagerly asked him to sit next to him on top of a combine, which had no cab and with huge cutting blades whirring below.

This was undoubtedly dangerous and rightly could not happen today in the age of health and safety.

You couldn’t help but think about this when Keir Starmer told the Government’s investment summit this week that he plans to cut red tape and “remove the bureaucracy that blocks investment”.

Labour’s gung-ho approach to tearing down planning laws to build more homes and infrastructure has huge downsides.

A recent letter received from a FTSE 100 chief executive quotes a surveyor from his home area of ​​Sussex as saying: “I don’t care what happens to residents when they move into a house (referring to the lack of infrastructure).

My job is to sell the dream to the promoter.’ That house builder turns out to be Redrow.

In a world where planning decisions are made from the top, above local interests, the lack of adequate roads, sewage systems, schools and GP services is lost in the water.

All of this might seem like complaints from the middle class about the dispossession of the countryside around them.

However, poor planning decisions are not limited to the wealthiest. In Runcorn, an incinerator built by KKR-owned Viridor is paying compensation to residents after a waste-to-energy plant allegedly plagued nearby homes with odours, noise and rat infestations.

A BBC analysis found giant incinerators are the dirtiest way Britain generates electricity. Many of these plants, which process half of the UK’s household waste, are located in less deprived neighbourhoods.

How much worse it will be if planning decisions are imposed from above without due process for local residents.

Bureaucracy is bad. But certain bureaucracy that protects the security and well-being of the nation exists for a reason.

Second Advent

Advent, the private equity conqueror of UK defense innovators Cobham and Ultra Electronics, has set its sights on Tate & Lyle.

The food ingredient group may no longer consist of sugar, but it has a long history in London’s Docklands dating back to the 19th century.

Several UK-listed companies – including Direct Line and Currys – have demonstrated this year that there is no obligation to kowtow to predators and sacrifice their independence and future growth plans.

The T&L board, headed by David Hearn, should tell Advent to take a walk.