George Osborne is not just wooing the City of London. The Shadow Chancellor was last night in Washington to hold talks with Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Mr Osborne was coy about the subject matter – international collaboration, the credit crunch, financial risk – but the meeting speaks volumes about his ambitions to get on first-name terms with the world’s most powerful financiers and regulators.

It is a strategy Mr Osborne has employed with great vigour in London since being appointed Shadow Chancellor in 2005. The aim, he says, is to maintain the City’s status as one of the world’s most preeminent places to do business.

“I want London to emerge as the dominant financial centre. I think it’s taken quite a knock in the past 12 months but I don’t think by any means it is fatal,” he told The Times yesterday.

Since David Cameron took over as leader, the Tories have gone out of their way to woo business. The party’s “City Circle” in London has swelled its ranks to more than 7,000 with bankers and lawyers from the likes of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Slaughter & May regularly attending the party’s swanky drinks functions.

Mr Osborne himself hosts more than half a dozen formal lunch sessions every year and insiders say that on a daily basis he is relentless in his courtship of chief executives and key decision-makers. Outside the City, MPs chair talking shops and seminars across different business sectors, large and small.

Top executives are said to run an informal Shadow Treasury research facility, hurriedly furnishing Mr Osborne with facts and figures on key issues whenever he needs them.

Mr Osborne said: “Three years ago, I made a decision that we would make a really big effort this time round to engage the City, It is not just about communicating our plans and our ideas, it is also about being a listening network.”

He added: “As a result I’ve been able to just pick up the phone to all sorts of people across the City and easily get feedback on our ideas and policies.”

It is a closeness that has become uncomfortable from time to time. Last year, two Labour MPs initiated an investigation into the failure of Mr Osborne to disclose to Parliament the names of five wealthy donors, including Lord Harris of Peckham, the carpet millionaire and Lady Rothschild, who put up nearly £500,000 to pay for his office staff. Mr Osborne said that he had not disclosed the funds because it was unclear that he had to and no action was ever brought against him.

Mr Osborne openly admits much closer ties to the City on funding and boasts that a large number of the 400 individuals who each contribute more than £50,000 a year are from the financial services sector.

Wooing the banks, however, is nothing new. Tony Blair made an art out of it before he came to power in 1997. The Labour Party worked miracles in the City with its “prawn cocktail offensive”, but in the past year the offensive on tax, the botched rescue of Northern Rock and the pain of the credit crunch has undone much of that good work.

Like the Tories, Alistair Darling has weekly breakfast meetings with chief executives and chairs a high-level working group on the City, but there is a sense that the Chancellor has a long way to go to claw back some of the goodwill.

“I think the Tories are trouncing it for the first time because Labour’s done such a bad job,” said one senior banker in London who declined to be named. “The City loathes Gordon Brown, it completely distrusts him. He’s managed to go back on all the good that was created under Blair. I think you’d have to go a long way to find anyone who would support him now.”

Officials from trade organisations such as the CBI, the main lobby group for British business, are more diplomatic. John Cridland, the deputy director-general of the CBI, said: “As the Government’s been getting into difficulty recently, business feels it’s becoming increasingly important to have an effective opposition.”

Mr Cridland said that the Tories had definitely turned up the heat in recent months, but he said that the jury was still out and most people needed to hear more details of the party’s policies before making any judgment. In particular, he said, Mr Cameron has criticised big business, such as the supermarkets, for putting pressure on their supply chains and airlines, for their green credentials. “So that has raised question marks about where the opposition is in relation to business,” Mr Cridland added.

On the plus side, he said that there were aspects of the Conservatives’ policies of which business was supportive. Chief among them are Mr Osborne’s willingness to consider what he calls “real corporate tax cuts” and the Conservatives’ position against more regulation of the labour market. “There’s increasing interest in what the Tories have to offer, but we have to see more detail,” he added.

That detail will no doubt start to trickle out as high-profile figures such as Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, ramp up the Tory charm offensive. Mr Johnson is set to host a meeting of the Conservative “City Future” group, for the under35s, in early July and so far 400 people have signed up.

Colin Stanbridge, the chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, said that Mr Cameron had recently agreed to participate at one of the group’s forthcoming “Question Time” events.

“I wrote to him and I made the point that there is a battle to be had in gaining the business vote,” Mr Stanbridge said. “Both parties have some way to go. You can’t say now that one has a clear advantage over the other. So it will be very interesting.”

Explore Economics

• Pre-Budget Report 2009

• Budget 2009

• World Economic Forum

• The Times MPC

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive