The regulator should also name the insurance companies who received the most from the £2.8bn transferred out of British Steel. They have questions to answer too.
None of them batted an eyelid when they started to receive millions of pounds.
Then, and only then, can financial advisers move on from this terrible scandal.
Triple lock remains
It looks like the triple lock will be back next year, which probably will not be popular among some financial advisers.
Many seem to think of the triple lock as an expensive indulgence.
While it is true that the cost of the lock is very expensive, this attitude baffles me. Surely a financial adviser’s job is to help clients achieve stability in retirement and nothing delivers that better than the state pension.
A financial adviser’s role is not to be an economic commentator but a representative for their clients. In that context, who would deny them such a generous income?
I have two explanations for this. One is that they are angry at the government for making it look so easy to achieve a steady inflation-linked income in retirement, when really it is very hard indeed.
The other is that they are annoyed at personally paying taxes to fund the pensions of other people because usually it is other people’s pensions that pay their own.
FCA strike
It looks increasingly likely that unhappy FCA staff who are part of the Unite union could go on strike.
Now insiders are warning that it will hamper the regulator’s ‘operational effectiveness’.
Will anyone notice though?
James Coney is money editor of the Times and Sunday Times
