HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, even Barclays, their stories are all different. But it doesn’t take a modern day Aesop to see the moral for the United Kingdom in them. Namely that it is foolhardy to rely on the banking industry.
How, then, are the alternatives doing? What of the march of the makers, to coin a phrase of the Chancellor’s.
Well, they aren’t marching. Compared with other parts of the economy they are hobbling forward on wobbly crutches.
The latest data from CIPS/Markit suggests that industry’s growth has at least stopped slowing. But that’s about the best gloss that can be put on it.
Part of the problem is that other sectors are doing so well, which has led the Bank of England to suggest that an interest rate rise is on its way towards the end of the year, strengthening the pound and hampering exports. The eurozone’s travails have further fuelled the (possibly misguided) perception of sterling as a safe haven.
However, the non-march of the makers is also yet more evidence of the abject failure of the Government’s pledge to rebalance the economy.
There is a reason the banking industry can shake its fists at Westminster in public and make demands in private. It is because it knows Westminster has little choice but to listen.
