City bosses call on Labour to revive 'animal spirits' while firms flee the London bourse 40 years after Big Bang

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Big Bang deregulation, and City figures are sounding the alarm that London's standing as a global financial hub is under serious threat, with public equity investment declining sharply and an increasing number of companies abandoning the London Stock Exchange. Miles Celic, chief executive of TheCityUK, warned that no international financial centre has a "God-given right to success" and that complacency is "the single most dangerous thing" any such centre can indulge. Steven Fine of Peel Hunt argued for a "big bang on the capital side" to end the situation in which domestic investors are effectively rewarded for choosing foreign stocks over UK-listed ones.

The original Big Bang, driven through by Margaret Thatcher's government, eliminated fixed commissions, dissolved the broker-jobber divide and threw the City open to overseas banks.