by Dan McCurry
I grew up in the east end after the docks had died. We used to go fishing for eels in the place that is now called Canary Wharf, although it wasn’t called anything back then. These days, when I look out of the kitchen window of my ex-council flat in Bow, this is what I see. Beautiful, isn’t it?
So when people say that there is no drip down effect from financial services, I don’t understand what they mean. If there is no drip down, then who is paying for those windows to be cleaned? For those computers to be maintained? For the sandwiches to be made and payroll to be calculated?
Are they honestly saying that behind every window in that glittering 3-dimensional city, is a bonus-earning banker, and no one else? I’d say that only one in a hundred windows has a banker, and the others are ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. Those jobs are derived from the wealth created by financial services?
The City hasn’t ended (wiped out) poverty, and maybe that’s what they mean, but no other industrial sector would do that. They may also be arguing that the City has contributed to inequality, due to the very high pay of the few. That is a legitimate point, but it’s not the same argument as “no drip-down effect”. Regardless of this, the people in the City who occupy the lower rungs are highly unionised and are usually paid well. This is an obvious asset to our country.
