TheChek News Flow

More than 1m UK taxpayers are expected to be caught in an income tax “trap” in less than four years, whereby those earning £100,000 a year lose their tax-free personal allowance and face a marginal rate of 60 per cent.

Under the coalition government, the number of people affected by this quirk in the tax system has risen by a third, from 588,000 in 2010-11 to a projected 791,000 in 2014-15, official figures show. If this trend continues, they will swell to 1.06m by 2018-19.

The situation arises because the tax-free personal allowance — currently set at £10,000 — tapers off for those with income above £100,000.

Since 2010, for every £2 earned above this threshold, £1 of the allowance is removed, meaning that high earners face an additional tax rate of 20 per cent (the “lower” tax rate) on up to £20,000 of income. This is on top of the “higher” rate of 40 per cent that they must pay above a threshold of £42,385 — for the tax year that has just begun.

Earnings between £100,000 and £120,000, therefore, face a marginal rate of 60 per cent.

“It makes what is otherwise a progressive income tax system regressive,” said Dermot Callinan, UK head of private client advisory at KPMG.

More taxpayers are now paying this 60 per cent rate as a result of the “fiscal drag” that sets wage inflation against the static £100,000 threshold.

Patricia Mock, a tax director at Deloitte, pointed out that as the personal allowance had risen from £6,475 in 2010 so the band of income on which this 60 per cent effective rate was paid had widened. The tax-free allowance is set to rise further — to £11,000 by 2017-18, meaning income between £100,000 and £122,000 will be affected.

Ms Mock said the de facto 60 per cent rate was quite hard to address: “You could have a cliff edge for the personal allowance, but that would arguably be less fair than a taper.”

George Bull, senior tax partner for Baker Tilly, said the anomaly was regarded as “a bit of a trap”, adding: “Politically, there is a sense it’s a price that higher-paid individuals have to pay as part of a fairness agenda.”

Mr Callinan said the issue encouraged people to “look more closely at their personal pensions contributions”.

Taxpayers in this position who put an extra £1,000 into their pension pot, before tax, can do so at a net cost of £400. The removal of the personal allowance also makes it beneficial for bonuses to be paid over more than one tax year, and makes charitable giving attractive. Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, said many people earning just under £100,000 took such measures.

The share of overall income tax paid by higher earners has increased significantly during this parliament.

The total paid by those earning above £100,000 is projected to rise to £63.9bn in 2014-15, according to HM Revenue & Customs, up from £47.3bn in 2010-11.

This represents an increase in their share of total contributions from 31 to 38 per cent.

Studies show music can influence which wines you buy and how they taste when you’re drinking them. Lettie Teague conducts a few nonscientific experiments of her own

I WENT WINE SHOPPING recently in New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen was playing on the store’s sound system—naturally. The Boss is an inescapable musical presence in his home state. Why not in a wine shop? But maybe because “Glory Days” isn’t one of my favorites (my tastes, Bruce-wise, tend toward “Thunder Road”), I found the music distracting. Instead of focusing on the Chablis selection, I was rifling through alternate Springsteen tunes in my head. Was this really what the retailer wanted me to do?

Several studies produced over the past couple of decades demonstrate how music can influence the wines people buy—and even how a wine’s taste is perceived. A 1999 study by members of the psychology department at the University of Leicester, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, analyzed 82 wine buyers in a suburban English supermarket. The team found that when shoppers heard French music in the store, French wine outsold German wine by a ratio of five to one. Likewise, when German music was playing, German wines sold well. (No mention was made of California wines, but maybe Beach Boys music was hard for an English supermarket to track down.)

Adrian North, now head of psychology at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, coauthored this study. In 2010, he conducted another while he was a professor at the Heriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh, that combined drinking wine and listening to various types of music. Professor North recruited 125 men and 125 women, all under age 25, to drink Chilean Cabernet and Chilean Chardonnay while listening to four types of music.

The music ranged from powerful and heavy to mellow and soft, played briefly while participants tasted the wines. For readers who might want to try this experiment at home, the powerful and heavy music was Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana”; the subtle and refined piece was Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers”; a Nouvelle Vague cover of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” fit the “zingy and refreshing” category; and “Slow Breakdown,” by Michael Brook, was the mellow and soft selection.

It turned out the music did have a measurable impact on the impression of the wine: When lively music was playing, the group overwhelmingly found the wine to be lively, and when powerful music was playing, the wine seemed powerful as well. When the music was mellow and soft, the participants found the same qualities in their glasses.

These studies certainly seemed to demonstrate that music could influence how people perceived or purchased a particular wine or type of wine. But did the findings hold true in everyday life? Does music influence the way wine tastes and smells for most wine drinkers? Does playing certain music really put people in the mood to buy certain types of wine, or is it really just a background soundtrack that you either like or dislike?

I decided to ask some wine professionals I know who are equally passionate about music and wine. My first call was to David Stevens, a wine merchant by day and rock musician by night. Mr. Stevens and his wife, Monica, own 750 Wines in St. Helena, Calif., and Mr. Stevens plays in a band with several Napa winemakers. The Stevenses consider music so important, it’s one of nine topics on a questionnaire they send private clients when scheduling a tasting. (Other questions poll standard predilections such as favorite wines and price range.) What is the most common musical preference? “Classic rock,” said Mr. Stevens. And the least? “I think we’ve had one group ask for opera.”

Mr. Stevens said if clients like the music playing, they might be inclined to like the wine they’re tasting, too, and he thinks people respond to music they are comfortable with, or “what they were brought up on.” Music also helps bring their guard down, noted Mr. Stevens, and that probably makes them more receptive to buying. Was there any music that didn’t have that effect? “Hip-hop would be totally distracting,” he said.

And yet at Charlie Bird in New York, which has one of the city’s best wine lists, partner Robert Bohr plays hip-hop almost exclusively. As far as he’s concerned, hip-hop can only improve the taste of a wine. “Hip-hop makes me happy so I’m probably liking the wine more when I’m listening to it,” said Mr. Bohr, who also manages private wine collections. At least at Charlie Bird, hip-hop doesn’t have the effect Mr. Stevens predicted. Last time I dined there, a room full of talkative, wine-drinking diners effectively drowned out the music.

And then there is City Winery, where wine and music are on equal footing. A restaurant, winery and music space, City Winery was founded in 2008 in Manhattan by owner Michael Dorf, who went on to open three more locations in Chicago, Napa and Nashville.

“I believe there is a direct correlation between the music in your ears and the wine in your glass,” Mr. Dorf said. He’s even editing a book on pairing wine and music that will be published later this summer. A sample entry from the book pairs Al Green with Amarone della Valpolicella, the big, rich red from Veneto, Italy. “If Al Green were to sing a wine into existence, you’d better believe it would be this deliciously smooth Amarone,” reads the text.

Mr. Dorf cited some real ways he’s seen music influence customers’ choices of wine. “With bands with a heavy bass line, we’ll sell more Syrah and more California Cabernets,” he said. When bands with a “higher tone” play, sales of white wine go up.

Mr. Dorf has noticed other correlations. For example, when singer-songwriters such as Steve Earle or Suzanne Vega play, New World wines—from places like California and Oregon—sell very well. Older bluegrass musicians tend to move Old World wines, from Italy and France. There was one exception to these rules: “In Chicago, they drink everything,” said Mr. Dorf. “They skew the results.”

Mark Snyder owns Angels’ Share, a New York-based wine distributor, and is the founder of Brooklyn’s Red Hook Winery. He’s also a classically trained guitarist who once toured with Peter Frampton and Ringo Starr and still works with Billy Joel. Did Mr. Snyder think music influenced a taster’s perception of wine? He said he could draw associations and justifications for why a piece of music might fit a wine. (“It’s light on its feet, it’s bright,” he offered, as if making a note of a wine or a piece of music.) But he eschewed directives such as “Drink Chianti with Billy Joel” or “Bordeaux is good with Chopin,” saying it would be like “telling someone what to feel when they looked at a painting.”

I sought the opinion of one more person: musician and vintner Boz Scaggs. I figured a man who had both a vineyard in Napa and multiplatinum albums might have some valuable insight.

I caught up with Mr. Scaggs just before his new album, “A Fool to Care,” made its debut earlier this week. Did he think music could influence how someone perceived a wine? “I don’t see why not,” replied Mr. Scaggs. Could he be more definitive? “There might be a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that goes well with my outlook on life,” he offered, which didn’t exactly answer my question. Had Mr. Scaggs ever tasted his own wine listening to his own music and found one tune made it taste one way and one song another way? He had not.

I decided to try it myself. I bought a bottle of the 2009 Scaggs Vineyard Mt. Veeder Montage ($45), a red Rhône-style blend of Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah. Then I downloaded a couple of songs from his 1976 album, “Silk Degrees,” and served the wine (label concealed) to three friends.

We tasted it with the first and second songs. Everyone agreed the character of the wine was soft and approachable but possessed a some-what short finish, although my friend Richard said the first song (the famous and funky but relatively slow “Lowdown”) made the wine seem a bit simple. My friend Marilyn agreed, while the last taster, Robin, found the opposite to be true. Richard further opined that the second Boz Scaggs tune (“It’s Over,” an up-tempo heartbreak song) made the wine “more complete” and made the finish seem less abrupt. We re-tasted the wine. I thought Richard was right—the emotion of the song seemed to fill the wine out.

Perhaps our little exercise didn’t prove much beyond a certain subjective truth: When wine and music are combined, the reaction is an entirely personal one. For example, according to Gary Fisch, owner of Gary’s Wines & Marketplace in Wayne, N.J., where I heard that Bruce tune, Springsteen is the music his customers prefer. “That’s the generation of the customers,” he said. Mr. Fisch agreed that music definitely influenced shopping behavior, or in his case, shopping avoidance. “There are some stores I won’t shop in because I hate the music,” he said.

Boost for Uber as Brussels considers regulation of ride sharing

Uber has received a boost in its struggle to overcome regulatory barriers after the European Commission gave the clearest indication yet that it is considering ways to regulate the ride-sharing service at a European rather than national level.

Plans for an in-depth study into the European taxi market to “provide the necessary background for the commission to decide on the need for — and possible character of — any further action at EU level” emerged in a private letter from the commissioner for transport.

The commission, which received complaints from Uber after it was banned in France and Germany, told the FT it supported the development of new and innovative mobility services.

While services such as Uber should not circumvent national rules, member states have to respect the general principles of EU law such as proportionality, non-discrimination and freedom of establishment, the commission said.

Uber has endured a rocky regulatory ride since launching in Europe in 2012, with its drivers facing fines or having their cars impounded. While it is legal in some countries, such as the UK, in others it operates in a “grey” market, where its legality is unclear.

The letter was sent from Violeta Bulc, who oversees transport regulation, to the chairman of the European Parliament’s transport committee. In it, the commissioner said that taxi regulations were “currently” dealt with at a national level, which had led to variances in the cost and service of taxis as well as inconsistent rules on Uber within the single market.

Ms Bulc wrote: “As a result, the regulation and market situation differs from one member state to another and even from one city to another”.

In Amsterdam, Uber’s European headquarters, the authorities raided the taxi app’s office late last month, questioning staff for more than six hours.

UberPOP, the low-cost service that lets drivers use their private cars to pick up riders, is banned in the country, which has led to Uber racking up €100,000 of fines — the maximum allowed under Dutch law.

Violent disputes between Uber drivers and licensed taxi drivers have flared up across Europe, with Uber drivers being attacked in some cities.

In Brussels, where UberPOP is illegal, some Uber drivers refuse to pick up passengers near taxi ranks in case taxi drivers vandalise their car or report them to the police.

The San Francisco-based group has fought back in recent months, lodging complaints with the commission aimed at the French, German and Spanish governments, which have tried to limit or ban the service.

In France last week, a court granted Uber a reprieve by referring the case to the country’s highest appeal court, meaning that the company’s UberPOP drivers could continue to operate in the interim.

The regulation of US technology groups in Europe has come under increased scrutiny in recent months after President Barack Obama accused the European regulators of protectionism.

jumpstarter-1

Anker specializes in accessories that deliver uncommon value. Like gigantic batteries that cost as little as small ones. Six-port USB chargers that are less expensive than two Apple one-port chargers. And iPhone battery cases that outperform rivals sold for twice the price. So it’s only natural that the company would leverage its power expertise to go beyond resuscitating little Apple devices and assist with real emergencies. With roughly the same footprint as its Astro E7 — a battery capable of fully recharging any iPad Air twice — the same-priced Jump Starter Portable Charger ($80) goes in a slightly different direction. You still get a pretty big 10,000mAh battery that can charge two Apple devices at once, but instead of E7’s third USB port, Anker includes jumper cables that can bring dead cars back to life.

Like all of the Anker products I’ve covered, Jump Starter is thoughtfully designed, efficiently packaged, and aggressively priced relative to competing products. Moreover, unlike some of the cobbled-together 3-in-1 accessories I’ve tested, its feature set actually addresses a related collection of problems a driver may have. But it’s not as much of an iPad-charging powerhouse as Astro E7; it’s best-suited to iPhone users. So is it the right battery pack for you? Read on…

Key Details:

Hard plastic box contains the battery, jumper cables, and chargers for home and auto use

10,000mAh cell recharges iPad Air almost once, iPhone twice

Twin USB ports can handle two devices at one time (slowly)

12V/400-Amp output can bring most car batteries back to life

Powerful flashlight can be used as a strobing emergency signal

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Most of Anker’s accessories come in nice cardboard packages that I really appreciate for their minimalism and recyclability. Jump Starter takes the same concept further by not requiring you to dispose of anything: the packaging is a solid, latch-shut plastic box that can keep all or some of the included pieces safe in your car, with a handle for easy transportation. Combined with the roughly 6.8″ by 3″ by 1.2″ Jump Starter battery itself, which has been ruggedized with hard matte plastic and rubber bumpers, there’s a very good chance that the components here will look very close to new after extended use.

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By contrast with Anker’s Astro E7, which includes only a battery, drawstring carrying case, and micro-USB cable, Jump Starter includes a 1-Amp wall power adapter, a 0.8-Amp car power adapter, and jumper cables, plus a micro-USB cable and the aforementioned box. These extra components substantially explain why Jump Starter’s battery is 10,000mAh versus the same-priced Astro E7’s 25,600mAh cell; a separate version sold for $10 more bumps the power up to 12,000mAh if you need the extra juice. One of my only two Jump Starter gripes: both of the included power adapters are lower-powered than they could be, so Jump Starter requires 3-4 hours to recharge using its circular 1-Amp power input. By comparison, Astro E7 recharges at 2-Amp speeds and uses a more common micro-USB connector.

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Unless you have a car with a finicky battery that you’re not planning to replace, most of Jump Starter’s use will be with USB-connected devices, and even for this purpose, it’s better-equipped than many $80 USB batteries. Anker’s 10,000mAh cell has enough energy to fully recharge any iPhone (including the iPhone 6 Plus, shown for size comparison purposes below) twice, with smaller iPhones recharging roughly three times. If you’re planning to use Jump Starter only for emergencies, that’s enough iPhone power to last for a full day of active calling, more than enough talk time to get out of most emergency situations.

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On the other hand, Jump Starter’s iPad performance isn’t as amazing. I tested it with a completely discharged first-generation iPad Air, and found that it was able to restore 97% power — very close to a full recharge. The iPad Air 2 will receive a full recharge with a little juice left over. But even though one of the two USB ports promises iPad-friendly 2.1-Amp output, versus the other at 1-Amp output for iPhones, both ports actually ran at 1-Amp speeds. It took the better part of a day to recharge the iPad Air using Jump Starter, which definitely is not the case with Astro E7.

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Anker did significantly upgrade one element found in Astro E7 and a surprising number of other USB batteries: the flashlight. I often feel that LED flashlights built into batteries are gimmicky — a “feature creep” item that companies include because they can, rather than for a defined purpose. But Jump Starter’s flashlight has an obvious virtue in emergency situations, particularly if you discover that your car battery’s dead at night. As shown below, Anker has boosted the light’s power significantly over Astro E7, enabling it to serve as a very bright and large source of illumination; tapping the unit’s power button lets you cycle through solid light and two speeds of emergency strobing. Again, it’s a thoughtful and practical little bonus feature.

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Jump Starter’s signature feature is its ability to jump start a car, and though there are caveats, it’s capable of handling common situations. When you connect the included jumper cables, it switches automatically from the 5V/1A and 2.1A output needed by Apple devices to the 12V/400Amp output needed to start cars, with what Anker says is enough energy (when fully charged) to jump start 3-Liter gas or 2.5-Liter diesel engines 10 or more times. It’s also worth noting that only one of its four blue bars (25% power remaining) needs to be filled for Jump Starter to work, which means that you needn’t worry about topping it off every day or week; the included car charger can be used for this purpose if you’re concerned. A light on the charger lets you know that it’s ready to go.

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I waited for a car battery failure for two months before reviewing this unit, and (unfortunately?) wasn’t able to test the feature myself. But the consensus from Amazon reviewers has been extremely positive, including reports of successfully jumpstarting everything from four wheelers to small and mid-sized cars with both this unit and its larger brother. Big trucks can be charged as well, though they’ll drain Jump Starter’s power reserves faster. A relatively small number of people have had jumper cable length issues with specific vehicles, but with an overall rating of 4.7/5 stars, the satisfaction levels here are high. If your car battery looks like the one shown in the photo below, the cable length should be fine.

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If I was personally picking between Anker’s Astro E7 and Jump Starter batteries purely for iPad use, Astro E7 would certainly be the easier choice: it delivers more Apple device recharging power at faster speeds for the same price point, while possessing a nearly identical footprint and markedly less thickness. But Jump Starter isn’t just an iPad battery. Users in need of a true “on the road emergency” battery will find everything they might need: the ability to bring a car back to life, enough spare power (and speed) to refuel a dead or dying iPhone, and a good flashlight with the option of signaling flashes. You can select the option that’s best for your personal needs, but if jump starting a car is one of them, the right choice is obvious.

Manufacturer:

Anker Price:

$80 Compatibility:

All iPads,* iPhones, USB iPods

One of the things I find most surprising about discussions concerning the advent of automated vehicles is that, besides predictable worries about the disappearance of jobs that currently require human drivers, there is a serious, and boring, lack of imagination. Most people seem to think the world will be the same as it is now, except that our cars will be driving us around. In this scenario, the main difference between now and then is that we’ll have more spare time to look at screens, since we’ll just be sitting there, instead of focusing on the road and giving the finger to people who slow-turn left when there’s only a short time to catch the green arrow.

The truth is quite the opposite  — and a hard truth it is — for those invested deeply in the status quo. For one, it will mean an end to personal car ownership, except in rare circumstances. From the user’s end of things, this means you will just summon a car with your phone, and it will take you where you’re going. Since you won’t own the car, you won’t care what it looks like or what’s under the hood, which means that cars will become a lot more uniform in design, as well as cheaper, safer and far cleaner and more efficient. There will be no more corner gas stations and no more main street mechanics’ shops or oil change outfits, since everything will be managed, as it were, at a bulk rather than an individual level of service delivery.

From the owner’s end of things, fleets of cars will be owned by companies. This doesn’t just mean automated Uber. To pick just one example, companies like Walmart will almost certainly let their robot cars drive you to and from their stores for free, as will their competitors. Assuming huge efficiency gains are met, it’s even possible that municipalities will get in the game, and cars will eventually be a part of public transportation. And that’s just the start.

But here’s the thing no one seems to be talking about: When cars and trucks are all automated and talking to each other to coordinate their movements, it will open up the possibility for many new types of moving robots and services to emerge, including “vehicles” that have no space for humans whatsoever. In the following sections I’ll set out just a few of the possibilities.

Mobile retail

In the automated vehicle future, “mobile retail” won’t mean buying things from your phone: it will mean buying things from stores on wheels. Just to pick a familiar starting point, imagine that vending machines could zoom around on the roads on their own. An entire industry will emerge based on roving algorithms that let vending machines for specific products be in the right place at the right time to make a sale.

Heading to the park on an especially hot day? There will be robots there roving around selling cold drinks. Is it unexpectedly cold? While you’re waiting at the (driverless) bus stop, there will be a hot chocolate vehicle right there ready for you. Ice cream trucks will be back, too, of course, roving the neighborhoods, with nothing but treats inside.

Robot mail carriers and other local services

Post offices may not have much of a future, at least as services distinct from the general industry of getting of things from A to B, but again it’s easier to explain a major change when you start from something familiar, so here goes.

Once cars are driverless, there will be robot vehicles delivering your mail and other packages right to your door when you summon them. Packages (and even letters, until governments finally figure out how to go paperless) will be distributed to local warehouses and loaded up onto trucks that will roam or rest in your neighborhood until you call them to say you’re ready for delivery. Then, the vehicle will just roll up to your door, ping you to let you know it’s there, and have your package ready for you. They might even deposit them on your doorstep in some kind of generic local shipping container.

Garbage and recycling vehicles (again, with no humans inside) will also roam around, coming when you need them, which means no more (or far less) garbage sitting in bags or bins on the streets. Sorry, raccoons.

Presumably, especially where crowds are gathered, there will also be health care robots whizzing about, ready with their cameras, first aid kits, advice, and direct lines to emergency services if anything unfortunate happens.

There will be robots selling tickets to concerts and sports games competing right outside the venue with scalpers  —  there may even be robot scalpers there, too. Since vehicles might get a lot wider as parking on the street completely disappears, we might even see the design of robot gyms or yoga studios that drive right up to your door and let you go inside and work out, while the gym roams around picking other members up and dropping them off when they’re done. (Okay, this example is both a little out there, and involves putting people inside the vehicles, but the point is that not all vehicles will exist for the purpose of transporting people around, but rather providing another type of service.)

This basic theme will extend to all sorts of other services. Even traffic cones and street signs might end up being able to move around, controlled centrally or even following algorithms of their own.

Speaking of municipal services, the robot cops we first encounter will not be shaped or in any way intended to move and manipulate things like humans do. Rather, they will be more like R2D2: multipurpose, smart tools on wheels. This may strike you as a bad thing, but anyone who ever has ever been mugged will be very happy to see a little robocop come speeding around the corner, lights blaring and camera flashing. Still, we all need to get ready for a whole new privacy debate, as roving cops patrol our streets recording video, scanning for trouble, and faces, cheaply, safely, but also ubiquitously.

Automated transportation of goods

Long before Elon Musk comes to terms with the fact that the hyperloop is a good system for transporting goods, but a terrible system for transporting people, automated vehicles purpose-built for transporting goods will be trucking safely along the existing road and highway infrastructure we have already built, with no need for coffee or truck stops.

There may be big truck-like things that travel in convoys, but there will also be transportation vehicles that function essentially like interchangeable, road-based shipping containers, with no dedicated space for a person. Indeed, someone might even develop something like container “skates” that you just roll a container onto as soon as it comes off a cargo ship, or out of a factory, helping the thing zoom along roads to its programmed destination.

A whole new startup ecosystem

The driverless future will transform both the literal landscape and the startup landscape. Just like the iPhone created a whole new ecosystem for startups with the App Store, when the things on our roads can be automated, the street will represent an entirely new platform for the delivery of goods and services. Of course this change will be hard. So was the change to driving horseless carriages in the first place. But it will also bring enormous opportunities on a number of levels.

Let’s just hope this driverless future can also ameliorate some of the catastrophic damage we’ve done to ourselves as a species, and our planet more broadly, for the sake of the car  — damage so ubiquitous, we treat roads like natural features, instead of the [deliberate bitumen spills they really are.

The British are coming . . . for Mayor Bloomberg!

Conservatives across the pond are seeking to draft the billionaire anglophile to run next year in the London mayoral election, the Sunday Times of London reported.

Friends of Bloomberg, who were not named, told the paper the ex-mayor of Gotham is “considering” running as the Tory candidate. The city of 8.5 million will elect Boris Johnson’s successor in May 2016.

While the movement is likely a political pipe dream, powerful Brits publicly backed the idea — perhaps seeking mayoral bans on fizzy pop, black cabs and high-calorie bangers and mash.

Steve Hilton, a trusted adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, is urging Bloomberg to run, the newspaper reported.

“It would be an incredible coup for London if Mike Bloomberg could be persuaded to run for mayor here,” Hilton said. “His kind of pragmatic, problem-solving leadership is exactly what London needs.”

Hilton said he previously discussed the possibility of a Bloomberg run with Conservative Cameron and Finance Minister George Osborne back in 2008, before Johnson was nominated as the Tory pick for mayor, but abandoned the plan when Bloomberg announced he would run for a third term in New York.

Even Johnson discussed the idea with Bloomberg, the paper said, citing an unnamed Johnson pal.

“Mike is an enormous friend of London. He’s a great contributor to the city. He’s got many supporters and admirers, of which Boris is definitely one,” the source said.

The paper itself cheered the idea, with an editorial declaring: “This is one of those ideas that, at first blush, seems to be off the wall . . . On closer inspection, however, the idea has much to commend it.”

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Current London Mayor Boris Johnson

Photo: Getty Images

The paper noted Bloomberg’s love of London and push for charter schools, gun control and redevelopment of rundown areas when he was mayor of New York.

The editorial even compared Bloomberg to international soccer stars who play for UK teams.

“Britain is no stranger to successful foreign imports,” it reads. “And where would the Premier League be without foreign managers and players? If it is good enough for Arsenal and Chelsea, it should be good enough for London.”

But Bloomberg aides called the whole thing bollocks.

“You can quote me on the record ruling it out,” former Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson told The Post.

“He is flattered, but he loves New York City too much to leave it — and knows how tough it will be for anyone to follow Boris.”

After his mayoralty ended in 2013, Bloomberg began spending a lot of time and money in London, building “Bloomberg Palace,” a two-tower skyscraper, on the site of Roman temple ruins. He owns a $20 million town house in the city by the Thames and sits on the board of the Serpentine Galleries.

Queen Elizabeth II bestowed him with an honorary knighthood in 2014 for his entrepreneurial and philanthropic work in the UK.

“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition, which is especially meaningful to me because of my close . . . ties to London and Britain,” he said at the time.

Modal TriggerBloomberg added Britain is “a place I have long considered my second home.’’

However, he is not a citizen of the UK or the European Union, a prerequisite for running for mayor.

Then again, he has never been dissuaded by pesky election laws, famously campaigning to extend mayoral term limits so he could run for a third term in 2009.

Rich foreigners can fast-track their applications for British residency by investing $15 million in the UK, but that still takes two years. Tory politicians could speed up the process because Bloomberg has invested at least $745 million in the UK, sources told the Sunday Times.

“We don’t think it would be a problem,” insisted a source familiar with the discussions.

Both Bloomberg’s daughters, Emma, 36, and Georgina, 32, are British citizens, as is his ex-wife, Susan Brown, born in the UK.

Johnson, born in New York in 1964, joked in 2013 that he and then-Mayor Bloomberg could “swap” jobs.

- Says:"The Board of Inquiry has found shocking details of corruption running into billions of dollars, manipulations of service contracting, recruitment of unqualified staff and major security breaches at Sri Lankan Airlines under the former government."

Cover Story: A look at four managers who took over major funds and either turned them around or continued to steer them on a successful course (Jeff Feingold of Fidelity Magellan, Scott Mather of Pimco Total Return, Taymour Tarmaddon of T. Rowe Price Health Sciences, and Dan Kozlowski of Janus Contrarian).Tech 

Trader: With the cloud computing sector maturing, tech giants such as AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, and CRM must adapt or risk falling by the wayside as new companies such as TXTR and VEEV gain ground; The tech sector has flipped, says Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA--now apps, instead of catching up with technology, are racing ahead of it.

Trader: Lack of storage for burgeoning supplies of crude oil could significantly depress U.S. prices, says Christopher Zook of Houston-based CAZ Investments; Positive on MON: Company has strong earnings visibility because of a strong pipeline, its valuation is the cheapest in the past five years, and for long-term investors it looks like a keeper; During the current six-month bull market, spin-offs are outperforming the market significantly, but could flag in a downturn.