Key To The City

I’m very much looking forward to catching Stephen Fry’s Key To The City, on ITV next week, apparently it is going to give us an insight into all things (good and bad) that go on in our square mile, aka The City of London.

He will describe how he thinks that The City is almost an independent republic and that it goes back to the 13th Century when King John needed the money and power of The City. Apparently King John was a bit of a bad man, and was alleged to have said to some folk: ‘If you help me raise an army and survive as King, I will give you special powers.’ These powers still exist to this day, which can be seen when witnessing The Lord Mayor show and the control he (or she) flexes over the city.

Lloyds of London

Stephen Fry will visit Lloyd’s, which is the world’s specialist insurance market, it’s not your regular Camden Market though, this is where members (syndicates) join together to insure risks, somewhere I enjoy plying my trade.

Lloyd’s of London, often styled simply as Lloyd’s, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. Multiple financial backers, known as underwriters, or “members”, both individuals (traditionally known as “Names”) and corporations, come together to pool and spread risk. This place is a corporate body governed by the Lloyd’s Act 1871 and subsequent Acts of the Parliament of the UK. For those of you interested, their motto is Fidentia  which is Latin for “confidence”, this is something I learned when studying for my CII PO5 exam (Insurance Law) which I passed thank god!

The Bank of England 

Mr. Fry will also pay homage to the UK’s central bank, sometimes known as the “Old Lady” of Threadneedle Street. It was founded in 1694, nationalised on 1 March 1946, and in 1997 gained operational independence to set monetary policy. We now have a Canadian in charge of it.

What I like most amount The Bank of England, is that when I wander past, I’m walking on top of its mind boggling gold reserves. From what I can gather, there are stacks of gold bars worth a whopping £156billion stored in an old canteen deep below the streets of the capital, I held one once (in the museum under strict guard) and it was bloody heavy!

You might also be surprised to read that  the ‘Old Lady’ once helped in the sale of gold stolen by Nazis after the 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia. A recently released document from 1950 shows the gold bars were sold by the Bank on behalf of Germany’s central Reichsbank.

In 1939 the UK government said it had frozen all Czech assets being held in London at the time, but the sale of looted gold still went ahead.

I’ll keep you posted on how good the programme is, or isn’t, please do let me know if you happen to catch it.