Gosling's Grouse: We need an end to era of 'career' regulators

We now know the next leader of the FCA will not be Tracey McDermott, which hopefully was not news to her after the Chancellor spilled the beans earlier this month.

His announcement came as a surprise as the received wisdom was she would get the job because she had carried on the regulator's high-profile approach since taking over from Martin Wheatley last summer. It is interesting to note that when the Financial Services Act first came about in 1986, regulators were people rarely known outside the pages of the trade papers. The SIB - Securities and Investment Board - was run by the more than able Sir David Walker, who was later appointed to try and clean up Barclays. The Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation was run by the for...