BUSINESS WITH PERSONALITY PLOUGHING AHEAD 30 YEARS LATER THE WIMBLEDON LOOK LAND ROVER DISCOVERY TO HEAD BACK TO HITS A LANDMARK P24 MERTON HOME P26 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE 3,553 CITYAM.COM FREE HACKED OFF US ramps up China TREASURY TO spat with fresh Equifax charges SET OUT CITY BREXIT PLAN EXCLUSIVE Beyond Brexit, it will also consider “But there will be differences, not CATHERINE NEILAN the industry’s future in relation to least because as a global financial cen- worldwide challenges such as emerg- tre the UK needs to keep pace with @CatNeilan ing technologies and climate change. and drive international standards. THE GOVERNMENT will insist on the Javid sets out the government’s Our starting point will be what’s right right to diverge from EU financial plans to retain regulatory autonomy for the UK.” services regulation as part of a post- while seeking a “reliable equivalence He also re-committed to concluding Brexit trade deal with Brussels. process”, on which a “durable rela- “a full range of equivalence assess- Writing exclusively in City A.M. today, tionship” can be built. ments” by June of this year, in order to chancellor Sajid Javid says the “Of course, each side will only give the system sufficient stability City “will no longer be a rule- grant equivalence if it believes ahead of the end of transition. taker” and reveals that the other’s regulations are One senior industry figure told City ministers are working on compatible,” the chancel- A.M. that while a white paper was EMILY NICOLLE Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Le, a white paper setting lor writes. welcome after a long period where who are members of the People’s out a vision of the there had been “very little on the big @emilyjnicolle Liberation Army’s 54th Research financial services sector Javid: “Compatible does picture for financial services”, it is THE US Department of Justice (DoJ) Institute, an arm of China’s military. once the Brexit transi- not mean identical” important the right balance be struck. yesterday charged four members of It is the latest in a number of US tion period is over. “The more you talk about trade out- China’s military in relation to the 2017 cases pointing the alleged work of The white paper, to be “But compatible does side the EU, the more you put at risk Equifax hack, in which the data of Chinese spies, including the Marriott published this spring, not mean identical, and your EU structures,” they said. more than 145m US, British and hotel breach last year and the hacking will consider the City’s fu- both the UK and the EU The figure backed Javid’s “flexible” Canadian nationals was breached. of the US Office of Personnel ture relationship with the have at different times recog- approach towards equivalence, but The nine-count indictment accused Management in 2015. EU and the rest of the world. nised the importance of focusing noted it would be “quite challenging” the Chinese military of hacking into US attorney general William Barr The strategy, which is still in devel- on regulatory outcomes,” he adds. to get the EU onboard. Equifax’s computer networks, issued a warning to China, saying: “We opment, will outline how Downing Pledging to retain “the highest inter- Stephen Jones, chief executive of UK maintaining unauthorised access to remind the Chinese government that Street expects its preferred system of national standards of financial Finance, similarly embraced the aim them and stealing sensitive, we have the capability to remove the outcome-based equivalence to work regulation, and to shaping global rule- of establishing a “day one” equiva- personally identifiable information of internet’s cloak of anonymity and find with the EU, as well as the UK’s making,” Javid added: “We may lence regime. nearly half of the US population. the hackers that nation repeatedly framework for granting equivalence choose to do things in the same way Charges were levied against Wu deploys against us.” to other jurisdictions. as the EU if it works for the UK. £ CONTINUED ON P3 Time to touch up the CV? Beeb launches search for new director general JAMES WARRINGTON new director general, publishing a pressure on all fronts. The BBC hit back at the move, With admirable understatement, job advert for its top position after The government last week warning it would cost the recruiting firm Odgers Berndtson @j_a_warrington current director general Lord Tony launched a public consultation into organisation £200m and have a — which is leading the search — FIRST THE Bank of England invited Hall announced plans to step down decriminalisation of not paying the damaging knock-on effect on the said the new boss would lead the applicants from far and wide to in the summer. TV licence fee, while new entrants UK’s creative sector. organisation through a “hugely send in their CVs for the The intriguing advert called for a such as Amazon and Netflix are It is also navigating a boycott of critical and transformative period governor’s job. Now the BBC has candidate with “demonstrable attracting younger audiences — or, government ministers on Radio 4’s in the corporation’s history”. got in on the act. resilience” as the beleaguered as the job specification puts it, are Today programme amid complaints The role’s remuneration was not The broadcaster yesterday fired public broadcasting house seeks to changing “the traditional the flagship political show is aimed listed, but Hall pocketed an annual the starting gun on its search for a fight off political and commercial broadcasting ecology”. at a “metropolitan elite”. salary of £450,000 last year. FTSE 100▼ 7,446.88 -19.82 FTSE 250▼ 21,493.32 -5.97 DOW▲ 29,276.82 +174.31 NASDAQ▲ 9,628.39+107.88 £/$▲ 1.292 +0.001 £/€▲ 1.184 +0.006 €/$▼ 1.091 -0.004 02 NEWS TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 CITYAM.COM LONG WALK TO FREEDOM South Africa commemorates 30 years since former President Nelson Mandela’s release from jail THE CITY VIEW SOUTH Africa will today commemorate the 30th anniversary of former President Nelson Mandela’s release from Time for Labour to wake prison in Cape Town on 11 February 1990, after 27 years of incarceration. Mandela was jailed in up and smell the coffee 1962 for attempting to overthrow South Africa’s apartheid rule. In 1994 OLLOWING its third consecutive electoral drubbing in he became the first non- 2005, Lord Michael Ashcroft set out to offer the white President in South African history, and the FConservative party some frank advice. His book Smell the first head of state to take Coffee was a forensic account of where the party was going office following the wrong and why they were unpopular. It played a big part in introduction of David Cameron’s subsequent modernisation project. Today, multiracial democracy. In a famous speech in Ashcroft publishes a piece of work designed to do for Labour Soweto (pictured), two what he did for the Tories 15 years ago. Extensive polling of days after his release, Labour members, former Labour voters and the wider public Mandela told an audience of more than informs his Diagnosis of Defeat. It is, he says, Labour’s turn to 100,000 people: “I have smell the coffee. He concedes “no doubt some will be suspicious looked forward to this of my motives — I’m a Tory after all,” but insists that “at its best day when I would come the Labour party has been a great force for decency, speaking up back... to meet my brothers and sisters.” for people throughout the country.” So, how far from its best has the Labour party fallen? Well, if one assumes its best days were when it found itself in government, the answer is: a very long way indeed. Last year the party suffered its worst defeat since the 1930s. Ashcroft conducted focus groups The problem Sales return to growth as with former Labour voters who was with the abandoned the party in 2019’s election. Time and again, Jeremy Corbyn was policies, not presented as the reason why they broke just Corbyn with tradition and, in many cases, voted shopper confidence lifts for Boris Johnson. Ashcroft said the Labour leader was criticised for what many saw as “his weakness, JESS CLARK AND indecision, lack of patriotism, apparent terrorist sympathies, on a like-for-like basis, but total sales leaps for the sector yet.” HARRY ROBERTSON were up 0.6 per cent, the latest re- Meanwhile, the latest consumer failure to deal with antisemitism... and obvious unsuitability to search by the British Retail Consor- spending data from Barclaycard lead the country.” Brexit was a major issue, of course, but @jclarkjourno @harrygrobertson tium and KPMG found. showed that Brits ramped up Ashcroft’s research showed that Labour defectors were most RETAIL sales made a cautious recov- Online sales increased 2.5 per cent their spending on takeaways and trips ery at the start of the year, as Brits in January, against growth of 5.4 per to the cinema in January after a likely to say they switched because they did not want Corbyn to saved their money for takeaways and cent last year, and the online pene- thrifty December. be Prime Minister. That is contrary to Labour’s official post- cinema trips, according to data pub- tration rate increased from 29.5 Consumer spending grew 3.9 per mortem but, come April, the party will have a new leader. What lished today. per cent to 30.6 per cent. cent in January, up from the one per lessons should the current contenders take from Ashcroft’s Total sales increased 0.4 per cent KPMG head of retail Paul cent growth witnessed during a last month, compared to a jump of Martin said: “January is usu- lacklustre Christmas period the findings? The most obvious is: don’t be like Corbyn.