I asked Ed Miliband last week whether he owned any shares or had any friends who worked in the City of London. It was my awkward way of probing whether he can relate to the typical FT reader.
He dodged the question but his advisers later told me that he owned a few hundred “Halifax” shares from the building society’s demutalisation. I can only presume that he knows that Halifax became HBOS which then became part of Lloyds Banking Group.
The good news is that his LBG shares are up today with the bank making £1.6bn profit in the first half – against a £4bn loss a year ago. Maybe capitalism isn’t so bad after all.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey