HSBC`s threat needs to be ignored and treated with the contempt .....

A few weeks ago, the director-general of the CBI threatened the "return of day-to-day hiring"of workers, should Miliband carry out his pledge to allow those on zero-hours contracts to convert to a "regular job after three months instead of a year".(Give zero-hours workers regular contracts after 3 months-Miliband,01/04/15) Now it`s the turn of HSBC to attempt to dictate government policy with threats, this time "to relocate its headquarters out of London".(HSBC relocation review adds EU exit to the mix,25/04/15) How much longer can we allow companies and their representatives to hold the country to ransom like this?

     How dare any bank complain about regulation, bank levies and a corporation tax which is around 18 percentage points below the rate paid by companies in America, when their profit-at-all-cost philosophy has led them to trick customers, fix interest rates, launder drug money, and divert much needed revenue from the Treasury, whilst paying obscene amounts to their CEOs and top staff?  Let HSBC "review its location" but is a move to Hong Kong, where, as Nils Pratley says, it would come"under the increasingly watchful eye of the Chinese Communist party", really on the cards?(Mist clearing here but fog in the east,25/04/15) How often have we heard the similar threat that, if bankers aren`t allowed their annual bonuses, they will leave the country? If our politicians had any bottle at all, they would call HSBC`s bluff, for that is surely what it is. Most of the electorate would be in favour of an 80% bonus tax, and participation in the EU`s financial transaction tax due in January 2016, so HSBC and the rest should consider themselves lucky!