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London has a centrifugal pull on talent, investment and business from the rest of Europe and the world. That brings benefits to the broader U.K. economy.

You know the illusion of the cheap money is over and now Britain has to go out there and graft and earn its way and create wealth and prosperity in a very competitive world.

London has always moved and surprised me, reinventing itself in ways both fresh and familiar. It's a contrary, complex and creative city, an anarchist of a thousand faces - fickle and unfailing, tender and bleak, ambitious and callous.

There was, of course, a global financial crisis. But our Labour predecessors left Britain exceptionally vulnerable and damaged: more personal debt than any other major economy; a dangerously inflated property bubble; and a bloated banking sector behaving as masters, not the servants of the people.

There tends to be a jealousy in England towards countries that are successful.

I'm very cheerful about coming back to the U.K. We increasingly found ourselves gravitating towards London. There was so much going on for our business, and we had grown substantially here.

People from all over the world come to London wanting to make their own mark on it, and they add to the energy and vitality of the capital. It's got a bit busier since the '60s, but the more the merrier!

Normally you hear about Southeast London, and you hear about all the stuff that goes on down there, all the negative things, and the tabloids kind of stay away from all the positive things that happen that I see every day, which kind of outshines the negative.

When I arrived, I didn't understand London customers perfectly, but we've developed the right style with the right price, and step by step, I'm in harmony with London.

There's a lot of tension in London, but then you realize it's always been there, in its history, and that the best thing about London, that there's always been this tension.