Tuesday 11 March 2008

Conservative supporter attacks Labour policy shocker

Why should we regard Tory-supporting financial institution Fidelity's comments today about Personal Accounts as free of political bias? Before I was aware of Fidelity's links with the Tories I might have taken their analysis seriously. Now I take it with a fistful of salt and wonder whether it is simply politically motivated, especially since the Tories have openly threatened to break the political consensus around Personal Accounts.

I wouldn't expect a Conservative supporter to accept trade union criticism of their party's policies as politically neutral. Perhaps any passing Tory could tell me why I shouldn't consider an attack on Labour policy by a major Conservative Party donor, which also employs a Conservative MP, to be simply the action of a political ally.

On the same subject I'm pleased to report that Fidelity's political orientation is definitely becoming more widely known. I can't give details but a couple of recent conversations - in completely different bits of the market - have shown that the message is definitely getting through to people with influence over investment decisions...

2 comments:

John Gray said...

Hi Tom
Further good news - Yesterday I spoke to, lets say, a very senior councillor in a British local authority, who told me that no matter what, their pension fund will not be reappointing you know who as their fund managers when the contract runs out!

Unknown said...

Mmm, Tommo, you sure you're not missing the wood from the DC trees on this one. I was surprised for one that Fidelity, seller of mutual funds, might publish something saying that individual DC retirement funds won't deliver for pensions when the whole industry has been pushing that route for years as if there was no alternative. Fancy writing a book? Provisional title: Hope I die before I get old?
Keep it up,
The Scarlet Pimpernel