Gordon Brown has made huge political capital out of his desire to reform the international system of bank regulation. This, he regularly implies, could have prevented the downturn. And it was something he has been arguing for (apparently) for over a decade.

Funny then that Lord Turner, chair of the Financial Services Authority, doesn’t agree. A line buried deep in today’s Times (from business editor David Wighton’s column) says “Turner….told me yesterday, international standards and better co-ordination would have made little difference to the course of the credit crisis. It would not have improved the Federal Reserve’s regulation of Citigroup or the FSA’s regulation of Northern Rock.”

Um, over to you Gordon?

I couldn’t get the PM himself. But the No 10 spokesman says: “It is widely accepted that there is a need for greater international co-operation, given the global nature of the international market. It was the prime minister’s view that we did need better global co-operation.”

January 29, 2009 12:20pm in UK politics | Comment