So the Chancellor has been dabbling in retail brokerage, with a little push-polling scattered on top. This is pretty much as shady as we’ve come to expect from him, but I was interested to see this:
Those engaging in financial promotions are meant to be authorised to do so by the Financial Conduct Authority. A Treasury aide said: “HM Treasury officials checked and confirmed this is FCA-compliant.”
So you mean someone at the Treasury asked the FCA’s opinion? Huh, that sounds interesting and should have left a paper trail. Zing went the strings. So I just filed a Freedom of Information Act request for any correspondence regarding the Osletters. I did a bunch of fancy drafting to deal with some of the obvious excuses (not him, or the Treasury, but a SPAD, not a SPAD but his parliamentary or constituency office, etc) but if that interests you, you can read it at the link.
Strangely enough this is the first of these I’ve actually issued.
BTW, when you said I should report it to the FCA, and I said it would make no difference, this is what I eventually got back:
“National Savings and Investments (NS&I) operates under its own legislation, but it is designed to incorporate our Treating Customers Fairly Principles. NS&I is governed by ministerial code and certain aspects fall outside of our scope. Therefore we are unable to comment any further regarding the material you have received.”
Interesting!
Permalink