We put out this YouTube short video this evening:
Rachel Reeves has told the City of London that regulation is a “boot on the neck” of business. That is a deeply troubling claim. In this video, I explore why her metaphor is violent, wrong, and endangers us all by weakening the protections that prevent financial crashes. Who will pay when it all goes wrong? We will.
This is the transcript:
Rachel Reeve said in her Mansion House speech this week that rules and red tape are a "boot on the neck" of business.
Think about that claim for a moment.
Think about the violence of the symbolism that she chose to use, and then think about how utterly inappropriate it was.
What she's claiming is that those poor people in very big businesses are being so threatened by the state that she has to come in on her white charger and protect them from the abuse of civil servants.
How could she abuse the structure that she actually works for, the government, so badly?
And how could she have got this so wrong? Because, after all, the regulation that has been created to control big business, and which doesn't always do so, is there for a good reason. It's there to protect you and me from the abuse that we know big business can deliver.
When did it last deliver it? Well, most obviously in 2008, of course, when most of the banks in the City of London tried very hard to fail. Now, Rachel Reeves is giving up on the regulation that was introduced then so that they can take the sorts of risks that they did from 2005 onwards, and the outcome is inevitable.
But she claims that this is necessary to take the "boot off their neck".
Who is she putting the boot into by doing this?
She's putting it into us.
What she's doing is threatening us because we will be the people who bail out those banks, who will now be reckless as a consequence of her actions.
This was one of the most inappropriate political metaphors that I've heard in decades.
Rachel Reeves needs to hang her head in shame at making this suggestion.
There is no such thing as the government putting its "boot on the neck" of business when it does what it is required to do, and that is to regulate capitalism so that the rest of us are protected from its failings.
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Agreed.
As Tim Snyder points out in ‘On Freedom’ such claims are merely the fears of the unfettered rich, superimposed upon wider society so that their fears are our fears and we are unwittingly co-opted into making our lives harder in the process.
It also has a hideous echo of the killing of George Floyd. She really is utterly clueless and; I suggest, devoid of any semblance of decency. She should go and go now.
Agreed
Appalling language, she is truly beyond the pale. I agree, her time is up – she needs to go.
Good point
Sadly, after being a lifelong Labour supporter, I really do think that this lot, after 14 years of policy development, are one of the most incompetent governments ever to be inflicted on the UK.
For a deputy leader of the Labour movement to make such a statement just underlines how far she and the rest of her rabble are from being fit to govern.
Industry has what it needs, and more, to make business especially viable in the current climate and highlights that they can contribute more to the economy not just in taxation but more importantly in the arena of more investment, development and r&d with government support.
Not the taking of sides in the question of businesses growing but working in partnership together.
I’m sure she has just increased her chances of being offered a cushy job in the City after her one term in Government one hundred fold..
Thank you and well said, Richard.
It’s typical of the comments that I have heard from Labour politicians and aspiring politicians since I began work on regulatory and trade policy in July 2007. It’s designed to impress and ingratiate with Big Finance types. Sometimes, the comments are run past Big Finance.
Thanks
And worrying
Yet more Starmerkaze!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/16/rachel-reeves-city-banking-safeguards
Time Labour MP’s woke up and got rid of this arrogant disaster of a leader!
She’s desperate.
Apart from the inappropriateness of her choice of language, which echoes the ‘iron-clad’ image she likes to portray, it’s the replaying of ‘casino politics’, under her control, that I find deeply concerning.
I’m pleased that she’s backed away, albeit temporarily under pressure, from limiting contributions to cash ISA’s, but she’ll be back again, under the guise of a ‘consultation’.
Let’s face it, the monumentally amateurish fiasco with the withdrawal of the winter-fuel payment, signalled that she is not very good at politics.
Everywhere you look, Rachel Reeves and HM Treasury are at the centre of the problems for this new Labour government. When Keir Starmer has his away-day, he might be better advised having a good look first at re-organising the Chancellor and HM Treasury (not that this will realistically happen as he’s already backed her) instead of looking elsewhere to refresh his tired troops.
My suggestion, for what it’s worth, is why doesn’t she get a job with a ‘top bank’ or financial institution, the sooner the better, which is clearly what she ultimately desires.
In my view, it really can’t come soon enough, before she does anymore damage to us as a nation and the government as a credible solution to the woes of the past 14 years under the previous administration.
Truly despicable from Reeves. I thought I was past being shocked and disgusted by Labour’s antics, but this is beyond the pale.
Your friend Larry Elliot is also alarmed – and rightly so:
“Rachel Reeves was in full Iron Lady mode when she delivered her Mansion House speech to the City’s finest this week. ….. It could have been any Tory chancellor since Nigel Lawson speaking. …..”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/16/rachel-reeves-economy-deregulation-chancellor-city-bosses-britain
He is right
Thanks
Almost all of ‘The City’ is basically an upmarket betting shop however unlike a former colleague who did ‘on course’ betting at Wincanton they get underwritten by The Government if they foul up.
The question to ask is, rather whose boot is on whose neck? It isn’t what Reeves thinks.
Here is the reality of ‘free enterprise, and ‘markets’, when you scratch the surface (which the Reeves of this world try hard to avoid doing). Elon Musk publicly fell out with Trump. It led to Trump changing the tax regime. What do we find about the biggest, most famous business operation in the world?
“Regulatory credits made up more than a third of Tesla’s net income in 2024. Meanwhile, accounts for the first quarter of this year show Tesla earned $595m from regulatory credits – almost 50% more than its net earnings of $409m – suggesting that without the subsidy Tesla would be operating in the red.” (Sky News, ‘Tesla Faces Losing Billions After Trump-Musk Fallout’). Trump’s cuts in green subsidies, has cut Tesla’s business model to shreds.
Markets do not operate as atoms in a void. Markets are shaped by the subsidy tax and public sector inducement system in which they operate. Free markets are an illusion; window-dressing promoted principally by monopolists and those who aspire to monopoly. China rose to prominence through protection; so did the US. The British needed an Empire (while claiming to be the leaders in promoting Free Trade).
Thanks
Nice imagery from Reeve: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
Her choice of language clearly shows how she feels, that it is big business and corporations that we, the public, are oppressing. Evidence would show otherwise. CEO pay up 500% while average pay has flatlined since 2008, working people still not able to earn enough to live on. Someone has their boot on a neck, that’s for sure.
I am forced to the conclusion that Rachel Reeves is not merely a puppet of the greater financial industry which she unquestioningly serves.
She is also astonishingly unintelligent. Apply a heavy ‘poll tax on jobs’ and unemployment rises! Recent graduates and school leavers are especially hard hit! Who could have guessed? Pretty much anyone with the exception of RR.
Now she’s only too desperate to repeat past errors on mortgage lending with equally predictable consequences.
She really must go.