伦敦能保住全球金融中心的地位吗？

    在伦敦，银行家无处不在，至少现在如此。

    他们住在英国的华尔街——“金融城（The City）”。圣保罗大教堂（St. Paul's Cathedral）四周狭窄的街道两旁云集着众多银行和资产管理公司，高档餐厅亦随处可见。金融机构还接管了金丝雀码头（Canary Wharf）。这个地方由地下商场、巨大的摩天大楼和大片空置的人行道组成的飞地与英国的传统风格迥然不同。甚至连上流社区梅菲尔（以拥有伦敦最好的餐厅和私人会所而著称）的大块区域，也成为了金融家们的领地。对冲基金经理已经成为那些优雅的、已有300多年历史联排别墅的新主人。

    英国首相卡梅伦上周四抵达布鲁塞尔的欧盟峰会时，他带去的要求是，保护伦敦这三块区域免受欧盟监管。为什么不呢？金融是英国经济的基石之一。在国家层面上，金融服务业为英国贡献了约10%的国内生产总值（GDP）。由于经济持续低迷，英国现在比以往任何时候都需要任何一个可供其支配的杠杆。

    即便卡梅伦的目标是健全的，他的手法也有失策之处。眼下，德国总理默克尔和法国总统萨科齐正面临着压力，需要弥合分歧，拯救欧洲经济。在这个节骨眼上寻求特殊待遇，显然称不上精明的政治举措。当天那个漫长的夜晚快要过去的时候，其余26个欧盟成员国终于就缔结政府间的“财政契约（Fiscal Compact）”达成一致意见，而卡梅伦则孤零零地独坐在一旁。

    现在，就卡梅伦“孤立”（套用一下政客们的用语）英国的举动是否正确这一问题，伦敦爆发了一场激烈的争辩。反欧洲的保守派支持者认为卡梅伦否决该契约是“丘吉尔时刻”的再现。而批评者则把他比作二战（World War II）期间试图与希特勒谈判的英国首相张伯伦。

    In London, bankers are everywhere -- at least for now.

    They are in the "The City," the English answer to Wall Street. Banks and asset managers line narrow streets surrounding St. Paul's Cathedral, with upscale fast-food lunch places around every corner. They have colonized Canary Wharf, a distinctly un-British enclave composed of underground malls, enormous skyscrapers, and large empty swaths of pavement. They have even taken over much of Mayfair, near London's best restaurants and private clubs, where hedge funds now house themselves in charming three-hundred-year-old row houses.

    When British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Brussels last Thursday for the EU Summit, the demands he brought were to protect these three pockets of London from European regulation. And why not? Finance is one of the bedrocks of the British economy. On a national level, financial services contribute an estimated 10% to British GDP. And with the economy in doldrums, now more than ever, the U.K. needs every lever at its disposal.

    Even if Cameron's goal was sound, his tactics weren't, well, tactical. Asking for special treatment when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were under pressure to find common ground and essentially save the European economy was less than politically astute. By the end of a long night, Cameron sat alone while the remaining 26 EU members agreed to move together towards a "fiscal compact."

    A great debate has now erupted in London over whether Cameron made the right move to "isolate" Britain, in the parlance of his fellow politicians. Cameron's anti-European conservative supporters called his veto a Churchillian moment. His critics compared him to Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister who wanted to negotiate with Hitler during World War II.