You won’t find many politicians who have a good word to say about hedge funds these days. But Lord Lawson, who was Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer under Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the 1980s, believes they have proved a safer bet than the banking sector.

Oddly, for a man who arguably did more to change the financial landscape of London than any other, Lawson's respect for hedge fund managers springs from nostalgia. Sipping a strong black coffee in the peer's lounge at the House of Lords, Lawson looks back fondly on the time when he roamed the Square Mile as a financial journalist (which included a stint as City editor of The Sunday Telegraph) during the 1960s. "I think the old City was a much more attractive place. It was very clubby, and you knew which people you could trust and those you couldn't."