Mike Fitzgerald, sales director at Brentchase Financial Services
“The government will act – it has seen the damage that regulation has done to widespread industry, especially financial services. Blair has hit on a real winner; in particular for normal everyday working clients rather than people with £2 million in offshore bank accounts.”
Simon Chalk, mortgage planner at Mortgage Portfolio Services
“I would give up all my future Christmas and birthday presents for that. The FSA has become quite anal in the way it approaches regulation. It should be concentrating on the spirit of regulation, not the letter.”
Roy Murdison, proprietor of Murdison & Browning
“It’s more complicated than it sounds. On the one hand you have Tony Blair doing the vote-winning and on the other you have Brown who is perceived as following a strong and exact financial course. As for whether the government will insist on the FSA adopting a lighter touch to regulation, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Thomas Reeh, chief executive of The Black & White Group
“It is hard to fathom what’s reality and what’s political point-scoring with Mr Blair’s comments. I find it very unlikely that the government will act on its criticisms and I don’t believe the FSA has acted in a heavy-handed way to date. On the contrary, its relaxed stance on advertising protocols shows it is giving businesses every opportunity and plenty of time to get things right. Anyone who has been to some of the FSA roadshows would have been surprised at the ‘we are here to help’ attitude and not the Gestapo mentality we had feared.”
Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol
“Tony Blair has made a fair point but if the government was worried about over-regulation, it should have had a private word with the FSA. I suspect there were political reasons behind his comments. Callum McCarthy’s response of asking the Prime Minister for examples of where he feels the FSA has gone over-the-top with regulation was fair and Blair’s answers may help the FSA too by letting it relax a bit.”
Roy New, sole broker
“I get the feeling Blair was just being flippant with his comments – perhaps he has a friend in business who has had problems with regulation. I don’t think the government worries too much about what’s happening in the mortgage market – the remark probably bears more on the larger businesses rather than us.”
