Urgent dispatch from Our Correspondent in The City:
Well, as we can see the Governor has had a few digs at the European Central Bank ('ECB') - not, as has been reported, digs at the Chancellor.
As you know the ECB is meeting at the moment to sort out regulation and with the connivance of the French and German finance ministries is trying to put the fear of God into the British finance services system. They will not succeed, they need our system more than we need theirs.
One thing new from the Governor was that our finance services industry as a percentage of GDP is five times that of the US. That makes it even more incredible that our finance services industry hasn't been harder hit.
When it comes to regulation we should be very careful. One thing that isn't being publicised at the moment is the fact that many of the private Swiss banks are doing very nicely thank you. The fear of many Swiss people and foreign account holders is that the major Swiss banks are going to have to open up their secrets to the world, this has resulted in a flight of capital from the major Swiss banks to the private Swiss banks. Julius Baer, for example, is working flatout to overcome its sudden influx of new accounts. This is where the regulators are going to fall down again, they will allow Switzerland to continue with its 'beggar thy neighbour' economics, as long as the money looks all right we don't mind where it comes from. You can avoid paying your tax where you are domiciled as long as it benefits our banks and our economy.
As you can see, the Fed, ECB and Bank of England are all scrabbling around to find the most amenable way to regulate the banks. What is certain is that whatever the Fed comes up with we will follow with some influence from us but the Fed will not take any lessons from the ECB. [Quite right, bunch of Euros - Ed].
This is the first of an occasional series of informed comments from our Economics specialist, Neil von Runkel [that's enough Euro stuff now - Ed].