Gnomes of Zürich

Gnomes of Zürich

Gnomes of Zürich is a disparaging term for Swiss bankers. Swiss bankers are popularly associated with extremely secretive policies, while gnomes in fairy tales live underground, in secret, counting their riches. Zürich is the commercial center of Switzerland.

The term was coined by the British Labour Party politician Harold Wilson, then Shadow Chancellor, in 1964 when he accused Swiss bankers of pushing the pound down on the foreign exchange markets by speculation.

The relevant portion of Wilson's speech in the House of Commons ran as follows:

:Traders and financiers all over the world had listened to the Chancellor. He had said that if he could not stop wage claims the country was facing disaster. Rightly or wrongly, these people believed the Chancellor. On September 5th, when the T.U.C. unanimously rejected wage restraint, it was the end of an era, and all the financiers, all the little "gnomes in Zürich" and other financial centres, had begun to make their dispensations in regard to sterling. [Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 560, col. 579.]

References


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