Finance Lobbying Portal

Welcome to the Finance Lobbying Portal on Powerbase

Powerbase's Finance Lobbying Portal aims to guide you around some of the companies, lobbyists and think tanks involved in finance sector lobbying in the UK and the EU. Since the crash of 2008, British taxpayers have shelled out an incredible £1.2 trillion on bailing out and propping up the banks, according to the IMF. Five years on, the UK’s banking scandals seem never-ending. Money laundering, interest-rate rigging, product mis-selling, IT meltdowns, tax dodging, sanctions busting – few big names remain untainted. Despite all this, the City continues to enjoy a cosy relationship with our politicians and policymakers. Its intense lobbying alongside big business has helped rewrite corporate tax laws in its favour and push back against new regulations designed to prevent another crisis. The Conservative Party gets over half its funding from City financiers. Behind closed doors, government ministers such as ex-banker Lord Sassoon, the Commercial Secretary, make no secret of where loyalties lie. “This is a right of centre, market-driven government … a government with a number of bankers in its ranks, led by a Prime Minister who is proud to say he comes from a stockbroking family,” he told the British Bankers' Association at its inaugural summer lecture in June 2012. This portal is part of Powerbase—your guide to networks of power, lobbying and deceptive PR. Powerbase has a policy of strict referencing and is overseen by a Managing editor, a Sysop and several associate Portal editors. <video type="youtube" id="xV3eHv_DbyA" width="350" height="250" desc="Watch Spinwatch's video about the Big Four accountancy firms, their role in corporate tax avoidance and too cosy relationship with the UK government" size=""/> <video type="youtube" id="kpbG3gmW7e0" width="350" height="250" desc="Watch Spinwatch's video on finance sector lobbying" size=""/>

Spinwatch articles and reports Take a tour of some of the City of London's finance lobbying companies, industry lobbying groups and think tanks via the Finance sector lobbying map Spinwatch, Who really runs this place? film and report on tax avoidance, 17 June 2013 Tamasin Cave and Melissa Jones, What the bankers did next... a short film and new finance portal, Spinwatch, 15 October 2012 Tamasin Cave, We must fight back against these City lobbyists, Comment in The Guardian: 11 July 2012 Andy Rowell, The power of financial lobbyists must be curtailed and Exclusive: how Goldman Sachs rigs the game, Spinwatch, 20 March 2011 Reports Spinwatch Report:Who really runs this place?, pdf download, June 2013 Spinwatch, Doing God’s work: how Goldman Sachs rigs the game - investigation detailing Goldman Sachs’ secret lobbying activities in the UK and Brussels and links to politicians. March 2011 Spinwatch, An inside job: a snapshot of political schmoozing by the City, February 2010

Categories Related Powerbase categories: Finance sector lobbying Tax avoidance Revolving door Financial revolving door Banking and finance industry Conservative Party donors Priority pages Barclays HSBC Stephen Green Standard Chartered Lloyds Banking Group Royal Bank of Scotland British Bankers' Association

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