A widely noted speech last week by Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, coincided with the 25th anniversary of Big Bang, the great shake up of the structure of the City Of London. The transformation of the man who had told the world the time for remorse was over into the figure who pleaded for more public understanding of his industry was widely noted.
But Mr Diamond’s emergence as the public face of the City is a measure of another transformation. Britain’s indigenous investment banking industry has all but disappeared, while a US investment banker is now in charge of one of its largest retail banks. Investment banks have declined, while investment bankers have grown in power, influence – and remuneration. This is perhaps the most startling of the many consequences of Big Bang.
The changes implemented in and around 1986 involved a mixture of deregulation and re-regulation. The conventions that had governed behaviour, largely tacit, were embedded in the English class system that governed recruitment.