News broke this week that HSBC are slashing 8,000 jobs in the UK and considering moving their headquarters away from London, in part as a result of the Bank Levy.
My colleague Alex Wild has talked about the bank levy - and the Treasury's rather optimistic revenue projections - on these pages before, but it's worth making the point that HSBC is more or less a perfect example of how too-high taxes are inherently counter-productive. A so-called bankers tax might be popular, as in the imagination it's just hitting less-than-popular City workers. HSBC's announcement makes it clear, though, that high taxes "on businesses" end up hitting shareholders, employees and customers.
I discussed exactly this on Sky News last night with Adam Boulton, alongside Mark Garnier MP. You can see a video of the discussion here.