The fate of the London Stock Exchange seems to be the only issue to elicit a bit of corporate nationalism in the UK. Britain has been happy to surrender its carmakers and telephone companies to foreign ownership, but there is something about the LSE that unleashes unexpected protectionism in the British (or should that be English?) soul.
Hackles rose when first Deutsche Börse, Euronext and even Macquarie – an upstart Australian bank – put in bids for London’s venerable institution.
