Self regulation is regulation for self interest. I thought we'd have learned that by now. The accounting profession makes it clear enough. The IASB makes it abundantly so.
But Gordon Brown is merrily lending his endorsement to a new City initiative - the International Centre for Financial Regulation. The membership list is full of the great and the good from finance: all of them those who need regulating.
If financial services need regulation for any reason it is to prevent tax abuse. Why then is there no tax representative on the committee? HMRC should be there. And why are there no representatives of civil society, for whose benefit this regulation should be intended?
I'd have thought people would have learned about this stuff by now. Apparently not.
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As Richard says, no tax representation is a glaring omission, but there are many others. Where for example are the accounting and legal representatives and, given the propensity of the City to line its own pockets with insider trading etc, the fraud squad? Oh yes, Sir Mike Rake makes it as the token gamekeeper. The Bank of England and the FSA are only observers?
With one or two exceptions (eg Ken Livingstone and Teresa Sayers as the sole female present) this committee membership looks more like a self-promoting backslapping networkers delight or maybe the typical list of people you might expect to be present on a weekday night at Stringfellows, than a serious committee.
Frankly, I’d expect this sort of thing from Jersey or the Caymans, but not from London and not from Gordon Brown unless he’s already lining up his post No 10 career.
There’s one thing you can be sure of with a High Level Group: it will soar above the general population dropping “nuggets of wisdom”, more commonly known as BS.