Will there be an end to selling England by the pound?

This year has seen a boom in foreign company takeovers. Phil Thornton explains that politicians need to work out how to end the takeover party as central banks remove the punchbowl – without a bitter hangover

Overseas investors are circling over supermarket chain Morrisons (AFP/Getty)

The historic era of “easy money” is coming to an end. Central banks are dropping increasing hints they plan to raise interest rates from close to zero and to claw back the trillions of dollars, pounds and euros they injected into the financial system.

Their decisive action undoubtedly stopped a recession turning into a depression on both occasions. But they had little choice: governments were either financially unable to come to the rescue or unwilling to do so.

As a senior banker told me a couple of years ago, central banks had “taken control of financial markets”.