What's the story, City Tory?

So here we are at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, talking about The City Under The Conservatives with shadow City minister Mark Hoban and a panel of policy figures. There's a decent crowd here, including representatives from Citi, Barclays Capital, HSBC, JP Morgan, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group.

Mr Hoban said: "We want to have the debate now. If you don't talk to people about your plans, you get them wrong. We want to make sure they work in practice."

The City will be a key issue in this year's election, so the Conservative party has its plans in early. It is keen to transfer regulatory powers over the banking system to the Bank of England, and "give them the tools for the job". It also wishes to set up the Consumer Protection Agency as a "consumer champion", and reduce the headline rate of corporation tax from 28p to 25p in the pound.

Mr Hoban said: "There needs to be proper focus on taking steps to stop a financial crisis from emerging, rather than how to clear it up afterwards."

Fielding a question about the 50p tax rate for those earning over £150,000, he said that it did have a "competitive impact" but that the party's priority was to reverse the National Insurance contribution increase scheduled for April 2011.

Mr Hoban added that the Conservatives would "look very carefully" at interest deductability on debt, and gave a luke-warm response to calls for cast-iron Crossrail backing, saying the party would analyse "every capital project to make sure it's good value for money and has a good reason for going ahead".

"We need to put the economy back on a stable footing", he said.

Also in the spotlight were the London Mayor's policy director Anthony Browne, City policy and resources chair Stuart Fraser, British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association chief executive Simon Walker and Cicero Consulting director Iain Anderson.

The panel agreed with Mr Hoban's point that Britain needed to be "more proactive" in Europe, taking "as much time in Brussels as necessary to ensure our voice is heard".

Former Brussels correspondent Mr Browne said Britain had an "appalling" reputation for "putting its head in the sand" while Mr Fraser added that there was "a lot of catching up to do" in discussing directives at an early stage.

Other issues that interested the panel included the bonus uproar. Mr Browne said banks had made it "impossible" to back them, adding that "Boris [Johnson] went out on a limb defending the banks and in the end he just said he couldn't defend them anymore".

Mr Fraser was bullish in defence, saying that the country had "forgotten about the revenues of the last ten years as if they never happened", and was gripped by "sheer hysteria" that was leaving the "rain-makers" in the banking industry "frustrated and angry".

He said: "After the election, can we just stop it?".

Mr Fraser added that the government received two and a half times the amount of tax from bonuses than it would if the money remained in the company, allowing it to fund its aims for the country as a whole.

He said: "Bankers do not come into the business to help the unemployed. It's the government's role to look after everyone."