Britannia Radio

Brown was warned again and again and ignored all warnings, merely 
smugly repeating that he'd abolished 'boom & bust".

Now he's posing as the hero when, in truth, he's the villain who 
caused it all.

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GUARDIAN   15.10.08
PM accused of ignoring warnings
. Patrick Wintour

The prime minister ignored a succession of warnings about the impact 
of the housing bubble and ineffective regulation of the City, from 
opposition parties, the Bank of England, the IMF and the Treasury 
select committee, it was claimed yesterday.

The criticisms of Brown came from opposition parties as they stepped 
up efforts to put the prime minister in the dock for complacency.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, privately acknowledging that 
his poll lead is likely to fall into single figures, accused the 
government of bad mistakes: "Over the past decade, the regulators 
haven't regulated properly, the government hasn't governed properly 
and that's in addition to the bankers making big mistakes. Gordon 
Brown did something in 1997 we thought was wrong, and I still think 
was wrong, and I would put right: he basically took the Bank of 
England out of the scene of regulating debt in the economy. They've 
taken the institution that's got the real clout in terms of 
regulating debt and taken it out of the picture."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, also targeted Brown, saying 
there "is an irony that the gambler-in-chief is now clamping down on 
the croupiers in the casino". He added that he believed the banking 
crisis of the past fortnight will be the defining issue of the 
parliament in the same way as the Iraq war had dominated the 
2001-2005 parliaments.

Clegg's aides pointed to Brown's last Mansion House speech as 
chancellor in June 2007, when he praised the "financial services 
sector in Britain and the City of London at the centre of it ... a 
great example of a highly skilled, high-value-added, talent-driven 
industry ... Britain needs more of the vigour, ingenuity and 
aspiration that you already demonstrate that is the hallmark of your 
success."

Brown's critics also pointed to his 2005 speech to the CBI, in which 
he promised "no inspection without justification, no form-filling 
without justification, and no information requirements without 
justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch".

The Lib Dems said they warned Brown about the asset bubble in 
November 2003, when Treasury spokesman Vince Cable warned: "The 
brutal truth is with investment exports and manufacturing output 
stagnating, the growth of the British economy is sustained by 
consumer spending pinned against levels of personal debt which is 
secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank describes as 
'well above equilibrium level'."

The Conservatives also claimed they had issued warnings about debt. 
The Tory Griffiths Commission set up by Oliver Letwin reported in 
2005: "The sheer scale of consumer debt has made millions of 
households extremely vulnerable to shocks ... Credit is far too 
available."

The Tories pointed out that authorities were issuing their own 
warnings, too. In June 2002 the Bank of England warned the way in 
which banks sell their risks on to other institutions "makes it more 
difficult to track where risks are ending up".   [This is a critical  
quote and from 6 years ago too. -cs]

In December 2005 the Bank warned: "UK and international institutions 
have increased their exposures to potentially illiquid assets ... A 
rapid unwind of these positions in the event of losses would tend to 
depress prices by more than has been the case in the past."