Has Labour’s Corbynite in the City been written off too soon?

Parliamentary Business

Mr Burgon was rewarded with the post as one of those rare Labour MPs who are truly loyal to Jeremy Corbyn (Getty)

City AM was in typically punchy form earlier this week. On the front page, next to a picture of the Corbynite Labour frontbencher Richard Burgon, the newspaper for City folk joyfully blasted: “Have you seen this man? Curious case of Labour’s shadow City minister”.

The story inside was little better for Mr Burgon, the headline declaring the Leeds East MP to be “a man of mystery in the Square Mile”. Unhelpfully, his team had not confirmed whether he had yet met “anyone connected with the City”.

The newspaper added: “The closest this Leeds MP has come to a tête-à-téte with industry leaders is a letter from the CBI, whic has asked for a meeting. However, Burgon appears in no hurry to acquiesce. A spokesman for the confederation admitted that coffee ‘has yet to be set up’.”

This followed a disastrous interview on Channel 4 News in October, shortly after Mr Burgon was rewarded with the post as one of those rare Labour MPs who are truly loyal to Jeremy Corbyn. His appointment was unexpected given his previous career as a trade union lawyer.

Pressured by the interviewer, Mr Burgon could not say what the size of the UK deficit was going to be this year, even though the figure is in the Government’s financial forecasts. He then all but admitted that he had not fixed any meetings with anyone in the City. It was what they call a “car-crash interview”.

But some allowances should be made. Importantly, parliament had only been back from its recess for a few days, so he had only just started to get going in the job – a brief he is being forced to master quickly. A Cambridge graduate, Mr Burgon is much smarter than he appeared, but for now he lacks media savvy.

City AM’s response to the interview two months ago was to be expected for a newspaper that, admirably, does not try to disguise, its textbook free market leanings: “Lest there was any doubt that Corbyn’s Labour couldn’t give a flying fiscal charter about the interests of the City, they made Burgon, a self-confessed socialist, the Square Mile’s shadow minister.

“This isn’t an opposition. It’s barely even a political party. It’s a gesture. An amateurish, angry gesture that appears to have little interest in how wealth and jobs are created.”

All fair comment, whether or not you agree with it. The problem this time, though, is that Mr Burgon has met senior City figures, partly in preparation for the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, which reaches the report stage next week.

This Bill looks to strengthen the Bank’s governance and accountability to the public. George Osborne says the eventual legislation will take “further steps to protect taxpayers from firm failure”.

Mr Burgon told me he has met Lloyds Banking Group, Santander and Barclays. I have also confirmed that he has held talks with the British Bankers’ Association.

He might not have had a coffee with the CBI, but he surely had something a little stronger when he attended a Christmas reception for its members this week.

Rightly viewed as a provocative appointment, Mr Burgon nevertheless said: “I recognise the contribution the City makes to our economy. I’m keen to ensure that the City of London is working in the interests of the rest of the country and recognises the lessons of the financial crash.”

There was a concession, of sorts, when he added that politicians, as much as top bankers, were to blame for the credit crunch that became a crisis.

Corbynites feel that the “mainstream media” is out to get them, which is a flawed argument in several ways. For a start, the media is nowhere near sufficiently organised to launch such an attack. Second, if there were any bias, it would be towards Mr Corbyn, simply because his sudden rise and then seizure of the Labour leadership makes for such good copy.

But there is certainly a collective view that Mr Corbyn’s team will be instinctively anti-City – which is different to being anti-business. Few sensible media outlets would question the sincerity of Mr Burgon’s claim that his ambition is to develop policies that will help small and medium-sized enterprises gain better access to finance.

City executives shouldn’t fret if they want a hot drink with Mr Burgon – they will get meetings. What they have to worry about is that he would like to change the UK’s banking system, perhaps modelling parts of it on the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. This is either a socialist relic unfit for the City’s neo-liberal orthodoxy or a remarkably profitable success story ripe for aping, depending on your point of view.

Either way, it would be interesting to see the reaction of City executives to that idea at the meetings Mr Burgon is indeed undertaking.