ABSTRACT
Controls are hardly a new feature of City life, but the size and extent of the controls both used and available to the authorities, as well as the additional ones being urged on them, are greater than ever before. The City debate has rarely been about the need to strengthen existing methods of control, but rather about the best way of doing so-by tightening self-regulation or by imposing a new form of statutory surveillance from outside. The City is often accused of having power without responsibility. Sometimes it is seen as the power that comes from a combination of money and inside information; sometimes it is the financial power to manipulate people, corporations or even countries. Britain has probably the tightest controls on outward investment in the Western world; yet, thanks to the Bank of England, it has administered them with due regard to their impact on day-to-day management.
