Broker slams watchdogs

The City stockbroker Charles Stanley is doing a steady job of helping clients through the ongoing financial crisis, without much help from regulators.

In a swipe at the watchdogs, Sir David Howard, Charles Stanley's chairman and City grandee who is a former Lord Mayor of London, said: "There is little evidence that the increasingly intrusive and burdensome micro-management of investment companies has been successful in staving off some egregious examples of fraud and mismanagement, the cost of which is spread across the shareholders in financial service companies."