The City of London and the Politics of ‘Invisibles’
This chapter considers the resurgence of the City of London as an international financial centre in the late twentieth century. It highlights the role played by a campaign to promote the revival of the City as a post-sterling international financial centre. The Committee on Invisible Exports campaigned for the recognition of the City’s contribution to Britain’s balance of payments through its ‘invisible earnings’, and argued that this could be increased by reducing impediments on its activities. The invisibles campaign was a distinct product of the post-war preoccupation with the balance of payments, which challenged the fundamental belief, embedded in economic policy since the war, that the route to national prosperity was in expanding industrial production. The campaign sought to reconceptualize Britain as a historic commercial and financial, rather than industrial, economy. In doing so it undercut a core principle on which the social democratic political–economic project was based.