London Mayor and influential Conservative politician Boris Johnson has pledged to personally lobby for the UK alternatives sector at a European level, saying that having a strong hedge fund and private equity industry in the UK capital is "not just good for London, it is good for Europe".

Speaking this morning at an event at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, Johnson warned that the controversial Alternative Investment Fund Management directive could be "the start of a flood of draft directives that will start to filter out of Brussels."