Britannia Radio

Most of the morning papers are trailing Brown's speech to Congress 
today (4pm GMT) .  But as a preliminary to that,  I deal with what 
the journalists have been scratching at since Darling made a partial 
apology.  Other Labour ministers are showing irritation at what they 
see as journalists' 'obsession' with apologies!

The first piece here is on that subject although it also briefly 
deals with the coming speech.

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TELEGRAPH 4.3.09
Gordon Brown refuses to apologise for economic crisis
Gordon Brown has admitted the Government should have been tougher on 
British banks, but again rejected claims he should personally 
apologise for the economic crisis.

By Jon Swaine

Speaking after Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, told The Daily 
Telegraph that ministers must show "humility" and accept "collective 
responsibility" for some of Britain's economic troubles, Mr Brown 
said there was no need to express specific regrets.

"There's always a need for humility and there's always a need to 
accept collective responsibility," he told the BBC. "I don't think I 
would run away from responsibility for what happens."

The Prime Minister, who will later address the US Congress in 
Washington, insisted that he had accepted blame for past errors but 
that international factors, rather than British economic policy, had 
caused the recession at home.
"It's a global banking failure - the whole system seized up," Mr 
Brown said.
"It's very important to recognise that where mistakes have been made, 
you've got to say, you know, this is a mistake ... I've said before 
that over the 10p tax rate I made a mistake.

"As far as the regulatory system, which is what really people are 
worried about, I'm not sure that any regulatory system could have 
picked up some of the things that were going wrong, because they were 
coming out of so many different countries, and we don't have the sort 
of international regulatory system that we're going to have in the 
future.

"But we know now that British regulation has got to be stronger ... 
you've got to deal with some of the financial institutions and you've 
got to have far tougher monitoring of their standards.

"We should have been tougher in some areas, but you've got to 
remember also that when it comes to, for example the subprime 
mortgages ending up in the ownership of British banks, that's 
something that had happened in America, the risk was all passed on, 
but they were rated as triple-A products.

"There's a whole series of issues where you needed international co-
operation because you're dealing with essentially global financial 
flows, and you cannot solve that problem unless you have the kind of 
international supervision that ... I've been pressing for ten years."

Mr Brown denied that he was refusing to say sorry out of fear it 
would be seized upon by political opponents, adding: "I'm only 
interested in one thing: solving the problem".

The Prime Minister's latest decline of an offer to apologise came as 
he appeared increasingly isolated from other ministers over the issue.
In addition to Mr Darling's comments, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary 
and a close ally of Mr Brown, said on Tuesday that the Government's 
regulation of the City had not been sufficiently tight. He said: "In 
retrospect, it is clear we were nowhere near tough enough."

There was a similar admission from John Kingman, the head of UK 
Financial Investments, the arm of the Treasury set up to manage the 
Government's bail-outs of banks, and another close ally of Mr Brown.
He told the Treasury Select Committee that the tripartite system of 
City regulation, which Mr Brown set up as Chancellor, comprising the 
Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, 
had not worked well enough.
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THE TIMES 4.3.09
Gordon Brown rift with Alistair Darling over economy fuelled on US visit

Philip Webster and Francis Elliott

Gordon Brown is resisting pressure to admit to mistakes in his 
handling of the economy, fuelling speculation of a rift with Alistair 
Darling.

The Chancellor said yesterday that the Government shared 
responsibility for allowing a culture of risk-taking in banks to get 
out of control, but Mr Darling's suggestion that ministers show 
humility and accept a share of the blame for the recession is 
rejected by Mr Brown.

The Prime Minister again declined to apologise when confronted in 
Washington with his Chancellor's words. Nor is he expected to offer 
any hint of an apology in his speech to Congress today.

Mr Brown did, however, suggest that financial regulators had failed 
to keep pace with the City. The system he had set up when Labour came 
to power was right "for the times of 1997", he told reporters in the 
Oval Office. Emphasising the need for worldwide reform, he said: "The 
financial markets have moved globally since then."

Although senior figures rejected suggestions of a rift between the 
Prime Minister and his Chancellor, Mr Darling's comments have exposed 
an internal debate over Labour's response to the recession. Some 
senior ministers are said to be frustrated that Mr Brown is focusing 
on the international dimension of the crisis at the expense of 
delivering domestic relief.

The relationship between Mr Darling and Lord Mandelson, the Business 
Secretary, is also deteriorating, according to one senior minister. 
Sources close to both men strongly denied that claim.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said: "When the Chancellor and 
the Prime Minister are openly divided over the causes of recession 
and their responsibility for the mess the British economy is in, what 
confidence can anyone have that they can lead us into a recovery? 
Gordon Brown is deeply implicated in the mistakes of the past - and 
even if he won't apologise for them, he can't escape them."

Mr Brown argues that Britain is the victim of a global recession that 
started through reckless lending in the US and spread through the 
global system. He also argues that this is not a typical British 
recession - triggered by rising inflation and rising interest rates - 
but a banking crisis of unprecedented proportions that he could have 
done little to prevent in his decade as Chancellor.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Darling said: "The key thing that went 
wrong was that a culture was allowed to develop over the last 15 
years or so where the relationship between what people did and what 
they got went way out of alignment, especially at the top end. If 
there is a fault, it is our collective responsibility. All of us have 
to have the humility to accept that over the last few years, things 
got out of alignment."
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POLITICS HOME 4.3.09
"Today", Radio 4 at 08:16
Brown: We should have been tougher in some regulatory areas

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

Mr Brown said he wouldn't run away from responsibility for the 
financial crisis, and conceded that the government "could and should" 
have  enforced stronger regulation.

"I think there is always a need for humility, and there's always a 
need to accept collective responsibility. I don't think I would run 
away from responsibility for what happens."

Asked what he had learned from the financial crisis he said, "I'm not 
sure that any regulatory system could have picked up all the mistakes 
that went wrong. The British regulatory system has to be stronger. We 
should have been tougher in some areas.

"You've got to say there are some regulatory issues where we could 
and should have been tougher.

"I'm only interested in one thing - sorting out the problem. To sort 
it out you've got first to understand what the problem is. The 
problem is a global banking crisis.

"You've got to have a strong regulatory system, that is capable of 
dealing with the huge advances in technology and sophistication that 
are happening."

He said that in his address later today, "I'm going to say to 
Congress seize the moment. You can't save the problems of a global 
banking crisis without all working together. The methods of 
cooperation will, I think, commend themselves to them."