Financial Discretion

There are few more reliable indications of an urge towards political change than sticking to the policies of the predecessor one claims to be a change from. The fresh-faced troops of Team Starmer have long touted their mastery of this forensic subtlety, and the Minister for State-Subsidised Gambling clearly has no intention of being purged just yet. Responding to the Financial Conduct Authority's plans to name and shame corporations if it judges that the public interest would be served, the minister expressed agreement with the ludicrous Jeremy Hunt, whose concern for protecting corporate crooks extended to undermining the FCA's independence. In the FCA's defence, its executive director of enforcement and market oversight wielded the magic word deterrent, apparently unaware that deterrence is moderate and sensible only when used on those who are unlikely in the foreseeable future to be capable of buying a minister.