John Kay

The Independent Commission on Banking headed by Sir John Vickers which the coalition Government has established will be told that such a separation between utility and casino can’t be done – although it was done in Britain for most of the 20th century.

More competition and a reduction of the conflicts of interest between different financial services activities is the antidote to gouging. The separation of retail and investment banking would begin a move away from the transaction-focused, sales-driven culture of recent years and reassert the development of long-term relationships with customers.

It was not British housebuyers who took on debts they could not repay in the recent boom: it was British banks.

It is particularly sad for me that James Black, the Nobel prize winning chemist, should have died in the same week that my latest book, Obliquity, is published. I am indebted to Black for helping to frame the idea – and for proposing the term “obliquity” to describe it.

The lesson of EMI is not that media industries are unique, but that you can lose a lot of money if you overpay for a company with a broken business model, as you can in any other industry.

“Too big to fail” insurance is likely to leave the non-financial economy with the worst of all possible worlds – less public control of risk and greater potential calls on taxpayers.

Like all business success, innovative success is based on matching capabilities to market.

The most effective control is other parties’ diligence in assessing the businesses with which they deal.

If you aim to create a dynamic, successful business, a state-owned utility is not the place to start.