Godfrey Bloom

Godfrey Bloom began his City career in the investment department of Matthews Wrightson in 1967. One of the first city management trainees reporting to Sir David Rowland, his subsequent 35 years were extremely varied, probably impossible now in a very much more specialized and regulated city financial service environment. Roles enjoyed include award winning fund manager (cash and fixed interest), a top decile performance for a still unprecedented 14 quarters, general manager of a life assurance company and more latterly head of research for a ‘boutique’ West End investment practice.

Godfrey retired from investment management in 2004 to take up his seat in the European ‘Parliament’ representing Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Past experience includes the EU Internal Consumer Affairs Committee and more recently co-ordinator of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee. He is also a substitute member of the Environment Committee. In 2006 he gave a very prescient paper to the National Defence University of Washington on procurement forewarning of the crisis to come.

Mr Bloom has a very long record of accurate prediction. In 1985 he was a critic on the consultative procedure on the 1986 Finance Act withdrawing from Francis Maude’s project in protest at the flaws in the bill and the basis of the consultative procedure. In 1992 he was at the forefront of the prediction of pension mis-selling and was published in the Daily Mail and Observer. In the mid nineteen nineties as a guest lecturer at Cambridge University he predicted the failure of the Euro over a ten year period. Mr Bloom also outlined the dangers of precipice bonds and split caps in Money Marketing a full year before their demise. He is a long term critic of prescriptive regulation and hammer of the Financial Services Authority. He led the British opposition vote to Brussels governed regulation in the European Parliament in September 2010 and is a frequent guest of national radio protesting, amongst other things, the promotion of gender quotas in financial services. Recent speaking engagements have included the advent of Basel III banking regulation in London, Vienna and Warsaw. He is a popular speaker at universities and enjoyed amongst others, engagements at Durham, Newcastle, St Andrews, York universities and the Mises Institute in Alabama. Recent engagements include Philadelphia and Washington institutions. He is an associate of the Von Mises Institute.

His uncompromising views on the current financial crises enjoy popularity on foreign television networks, but, of course, not the BBC who regard his anti Keynesian views as too hot to handle. He has recently coordinated and contributed to a major academic paper to be put forward for the prestigious Wolfson Prize. He was ejected from the Mansion House for heckling Lord Turner on regulatory failure. According to the Daily Telegraph the first man since John Wilkes in the seventeen hundreds. He was also famously illegally ejected from the EU ‘Parliament’ for exposure of fascism in the Chamber. One Italian group quit the Chamber in support and even the Greens lodged a protest at his treatment.

A keen military historian he is an associate member of the Royal College of Defence Studies and has been published in the prestigious Army Review.

He served 30 years with the Territorial Army, initially with the County of London Yeomanry and holds the Territorial Decoration and bar.

He is frequently miss-quoted on his opinions on employment laws affecting women.

His hobbies include rugby (non playing now!), cricket, hunting, shooting (when invited).

He is married to one of England’s leading equine physiotherapists