Pressed on whether he believed strict new EU guidelines that limit the cash element of bonuses to 30pc and tie awards to a multiple of base salary will result in a flight of talent overseas, the internal market commissioner rejected the claim.
\”I would not be overly impressed by the blackmail exerted in which this kind of risk is mentioned,\” he told the Treasury Select Committee (TSC). \”I very much doubt there will be a flight of talent towards Asia or elsewhere.\”
It isn\’t blackmail if someone says well, thanks, but, you know, I think I\’d like to go and work elsewhere. After mature consideration of what is on offer in this job, if it\’s all the same to you, I think I\’d prefer to go and do that job over there.
For the labourer does indeed own his own labour: Barnier\’s position is that anyone who rejects one job offer for another is indulging in blackmail.
It\’s also really rather worth noting that M. Bastiat has things to say on such subjects. It\’s not so much that those currently in The City decide to get up and leave (although this is still a concern), it\’s where will the new markets grow up and base themselves? Not where will the seen move to, but where will the unseen future arise?
Do recall, after all, that the Eurobond markets are in London through pure happenstance: the US imposition of with holding tax on bonds and the UK\’s non imposition of such way back when.
“I very much doubt …”: ain’t evidence a wonderful thing?
Barnier is a poltroon. His last outing (French Min of Ag and Fish) was to try and surrender to the fishermen’s blockade about high diesel prices. This fiasco made the govt look weak and the fishermen look stupid because: there’s no tax on commercial boat diesel.
So he’s been shunted off to surrender somewhere else. Unless the city can’t get its act together. In which case, well, sometimes losers deserve to lose.
He may be a twat – or even a poltroon – but he’s in charge and there is damn all we can do about it.
No elections, no accountability, no comeback.
Welcome to the New EU Order.
This is the consequence of the UK being outplayed on the allocation of Commissioner roles. Play to the residual vanity of having had an Empire and give them the Foreign Affairs spot; even better, get a patsy like Baroness Ashton to do the job inconsequentially. Then give one of the real jobs to someone like Barnier who can leg-over the City.
Barnier has also shown himself an idiot on food speculation and on naked CDS. He’s poised to achieve what those incompetently hubristic Scottish bankers couldn’t: the long-term humbling and delegation of the City.