CITY GRUMP
I CARE. PASSIONATELY. ABOUT THIS ARTICLE.
With an almost theological fervour, I do. It is, indisputably, a paradigm-shifting game-changer. Therefore, permit me to curate this epistle for your edification. However, our inaugural manoeuvre must be to unpack, deconstruct, and interrogate the very lexicon that promises to incentivise proactive leverage and maximise cross-platform impactfulity for our 2026 journey. We are compelled to lean in, to synergise with the zeitgeist.
This constitutes my formal reach-out. Let us be transparent: not a single iota of this discourse is above my paygrade. It is the hermetically sealed hard truth—an uncompromising value proposition we must collectively granularise. The primary key takeaway, the undeniable net-net, is that one must occasionally embrace the suck. But! Let us strategically park that granite-core reality. Let us instead circle back, table it, and re-contextualise our entry vector.
Aligning with your consensus, I posit we are starved for radical transparency and blue-sky thinking. Back in the day—a halcyon period in time—we possessed the bandwidth to closely scrutinise the road ahead with laser-focused granularity. Then, the ecosystem delivered an unexpected surprise: a genuine curveball that fundamentally moved the goalposts. Keir Starmer executed a move of such memorable iconicity, a deep-dive, boots-on-the-ground operational pivot. You may protest his architectural defenestration of Angela Rayner—that is your authentic take—but I advocate we revert back, take it offline, and engage in a no-holds-barred drill-down. Premature open-kimononess risks fostering a non-performative hostile environment.
Thus, if you possess a burning desire to dialogue within this conceptual space, to run some truly disruptive ideas up the flagpole and ideate beyond the silo, I have identified a strategic window. I can share things at a granular level. Let us synergise our calendars at 23:30 hours, Thursday the 31st of December, 2026. I have ring-fenced this slot as a pressing priority to socialise and operationalise these next-level thought-leadership concepts.
Let us touch base, action a scalable roadmap, and co-create the future.
In perpetuity, synergistically, and at the end of the day, yours.
The City Grump has spent some 40 years in the City of London. He started as a stockbroker’s analyst but after some years he decided he was too grumpy to continue with the sell side of things so he moved to the buy side and became a fund manager for the next 20 years, selling his own business in the 1990s. Post the millennium, he found himself in turn chairing a stockbroker, a financial PR company, and an Exchange. He still keeps his hand in, chairing a brace of VCTs and investing personally in start-ups. The City Grump’s publications are available here.