In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Gordon Brown finally admits some responsibility over the financial crisis. After David Cameron’s apology and subsequent double digit lead in the polls, this was only to be expected. Although it is doubtful whether this is enough to diffuse the calls for an apology from his political opponents.
The prime minister concedes that he wishes he had started a campaign ten years ago to demand more responsible regulation of the financial markets, and admitting that the national system of regulation he helped establish in 1997 could not withstand the massive global financial flows. “I take full responsibility for all my actions, but I think we’re dealing with a bigger problem that is global in nature, as well as national. Perhaps 10 years ago after the Asian crisis when other countries thought these problems would go away, we should have been tougher … keeping and forcing these issues on to the agenda like we did on debt relief and other issues of international policy.”
In my mind, there is no doubt that the whole banking industry needs an overhaul. Low salaries and big bonuses fuels greed and risk taking witch leads to taxpayers losing money witch leads to toxic debts. Banks are trusted with our money because we don’t have another choice, and should behave accordingly. Banks are regulated by governments, and therefore, tougher regulations must be set, and should have been so ten years ago, after the Asian crisis showed us that everything is possible.
There is a huge difference between admitting “responsibility” which he could not deny as the man in in charge and apologising for letting the people of this country down. Gordon Brown still has much further to go, because unless or until he admits his mistakes and apologies for them, as any normal individual would do, we cannot trust him to have learned from the mistakes and therefore, to be the man to lead us out of these troubled times.