This is not about slowing the progress of enabling new payment methods. It is about ensuring the right steps are taken to guarantee choice for our constituents, maintaining cash for the individuals and businesses that need it most.
The key problem is stagnation. Margaret Thatcher’s reforms promoted mobility and opportunity. Now we are an economy which doesn’t change enough.
If ministers want to foster a general atmosphere of equal treatment for lawful opinion, institutions such as local authorities and the police must set the example.
There are many things that can be done to resist the tide. The first would be for ministers to make the philosophical case for where state responsibility ends, and personal responsibility starts.
The Opposition may be ahead in the polls, but on issue after issue the left finds itself on the back foot. But will the Government have the boldness to capitalise on this moment?
I will be looking to introduce a Private Member’s Bill to guarantee our rights to bank accounts. If I cannot get the time for that, I will be looking to amend the first relevant Bill that goes through the Commons.
Perhaps sticking up for Farage is a bridge too far, even for the former human rights lawyer. Perhaps it doesn’t seem worth picking that battle when there are more substantive policy disputes to win.
If the Government follows through on its rhetoric, that will (or at least, could) be a substantial reform – more substantial than many MPs achieve in the course of a parliamentary career.
The accelerating trend of branch closures and declining numbers of free-to-use ATMs make it increasingly difficult for the old and vulnerable to access basic services.
Preventing right-wingers from being discriminated against by corporate progressives is not going to be top of an incoming Labour government’s list of priorities.
Banks should not set themselves up in independent judgement of their customer’s views. The Government is reviewing the issue, but if necessary should make this a regulatory requirement.
You don’t need to buy Nigel Farage’s wild claims about MI5 being behind the closure of his accounts to see that banking is too important to modern life to let people be shut out of it on private whim.
High standards of governance helped the City establish itself as a global centre for finance. We should seek to make of the digital pound another trusted institution.
While no-one should be complacent, the initial evidence is that current problems are specific and not systemic.
Ministers have no business giving British investors bad investment advice; much less forcing them to follow that advice.