UK News

By Ian Campbell

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Students of British history will recall the story of Thomas a’Becket, the 12th century prelate who was handpicked by Henry II to become Archbishop of Canterbury because of his loyalty to the Crown. Within months of his appointment, a’Becket turned against the King in the numerous conflicts between church and state. As a result, a’Becket was murdered at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, after four of Henry’s henchmen heard their royal master mutter in irritation: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Archbishops do not have much political clout these days, but comparable spiritual importance now attaches to central bankers. And a central banker who suddenly seems reminiscent of Thomas a’Becket is Mark Carney, the recently appointed governor of the Bank of England.

--Vikas Pota is chief executive of the Varkey GEMS Foundation. The opinions expressed are his own.--

By Neil Unmack

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Sixty years ago, pondering the question of an unruly populace, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht mused, “Would it not be easier / In that case, for the government / To dissolve the people / And elect another?”

I heard the first uncertain fragment on BBC Radio. I was wearing a dinner jacket, driving in the dark to a press ball in Teesside in the industrial northeast of England. This dinner dance was quite an occasion for me. I was the new boy, early thirties, putting in a first appearance as an editor at a big social event where all the rival purveyors of news hobnobbed with mayors, MPs, police chiefs, bosses of the coal mines, steel mills and shipbuilding yards: in short, all the news sources of the entire northeast we covered.

Duxford, England

By Neil Hall

Propellers whirring, a group of Spitfire aircraft zooms in formation across the sky over Duxford Airfield, one of the first stations of Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF).

There have been a lot of sighs of relief in Europe lately, where countries like Britain and Spain, long in recession, have finally started to grow. Not by much, nor for long. But such is the political imperative to suggest that all the misery of fiscally tight economic policies was worth the pain that there are tentative claims the worst is now over and, ipso facto, austerity worked.

Russell Brand, the British comedian, used a guest editorship of the 100-plus-year-old leftist magazine New Statesman last month to call for a “total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system.” Capitalism, and the ideology that sustains it -- “100 percent corrupt” -- must be overthrown. He also doesn’t think people should vote, as partaking in democracy would further the illusion that a rotten system could change. It was a call, albeit chaotically phrased, for a socialist revolution.

Finance has rightly been in the sin bin for the last six years. And the cleanup job isn’t finished. But Mark Carney, the new Bank of England governor, is correct to stress how a large and expanding City of London is good for Britain, Europe and the world – provided it is properly organised.