What about Gordon? Shouldn't he shoulder some of the blame?

I must apologise for concentrating earlier on Ed Balls's inconsistent record when it comes to talking about 'light touch regulation' of The City and not mentioning Gordon Brown; mea culpa.

So from Gordon Brown's 2005 speech to the CBI:

"...no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch."

And from The Telegraph reporting on Lord Turner's appearance before the Treasury select committee in February 2009 (my emphasis):

'Lord Turner told MPs: “All the pressure on the FSA was not to say why aren’t you looking at these business models, but why are you being so heavy and intrusive, can’t you make your regulation a bit more light touch?

“We were supervising people like HBOS within a particular philosophy of the way you do regulation, which I think in retrospect was wrong.

“It was not the function of the regulator to cast questions over overall business strategy of the institutions - you may find that surprising.”

He added: “I think (the FSA’s actions were) a competent execution of a style of regulation and a philosophy in regulation which was, in retrospect, mistaken.”

John McFall, the chairman of the committee, said the remarks had raised serious questions about the FSA’s independence.

Mr Brown and Ed Balls, previously his key adviser, had regularly boasted of the benefits of so-called “light touch” regulation. '

Do remind who took regulation away from the Bank of England and split its responsibilities in a tripartite system that spectacularly failed to do the job adequately? That would be Gordon Brown and his right hand man Ed Balls.

The last Labour government's culpability for the economic mess that the UK finds itself in is something that the Labour Party and its friends at the BBC have managed to gloss over for some time now; I call upon every Conservative spokesman in every TV, Radio and newspaper interview to make the point loud and clear -

"Gordon Brown and Ed Balls" were personally responsible for making decisions that helped to cause the economic crisis in the UK and should be held to account."