The Guardian: "Too big and too scary, but the global fat cats can be chopped down to size"

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"For a time I worked in the private equity large-buyout sector, an industry that invests both money from private investors and public money from pension and sovereign wealth funds in companies that are then sold for a profit, which is subsequently distributed back to the investors. Deal-makers have amassed huge fortunes partly through paying relatively little tax on their share of the profits.

"There is, in my experience, a problematic degree of awe, shared by both the right and the left, of this corporate monied species – and, in the UK in particular, occasionally a misunderstanding of how they work. The hysteria surrounding the witch-hunt of the 'masters of the universe' private equity barons in 2008 for exploiting a tax loophole to pay “less tax than their cleaners” was a clear example of this.

"On the one hand, MPs in a parliamentary select committee asked members of the industry ill-informed and posturing questions. On the other, the establishment was very publicly rewarding private equity dons with knighthoods. Despite the public clamour, MPs barely plugged the tax loophole.

"Observing this process through the prism of private equity, there is a certain obsequiousness on behalf of politicians behind closed doors. It appears almost impossible for them to cut their business opponents down to size when those opponents come to the meeting in a private jet. This is why political pressure from voters is vital. The soft influence as well as direct pressure that corporate lobbies can wield on politicians in effect cuts the voter out of the decision-making process altogether. It is not only inherently undemocratic, but anti-democratic."