Robert Preston sort of has to admit it...
'But Labour wasn't just asleep at the wheel when it came to City regulation. Arguably it was drunk at the wheel - in that it loved the City boom, for generating huge tax revenues that it then lavished on public services.
So the failure to keep the City properly in check was in a sense wilful and therefore doubly wrong
And there's another thing. Even best-in-class regulation of the City can't protect any economy from periodic shocks.
Which is why there is something to be said for George Osborne's favourite cliche, that it is sensible to mend the roof when the sun is shining.
Or to put it another way, when the economy is growing strongly, as it did through most of Labour's years in office, it probably does no harm to finance growth in public services largely through the proceeds of growth, rather than through borrowing.
Why? Well, the lower the national debt at the time recession bites, the more scope there is to borrow to protect public services and increase benefits, to shield people from the pain of recession.'
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