Mr Dale must be another of those sad dreamers who thinks Britain still commands huge influence in the world. How else could Mr Brown, single-handedly and purely for his own malicious ends, have been able to bring down the international banking system.

In reality we seem to be seeing at last the long overdue end of Reganomics.

Now here's a little test: A) Who is Iain's greatest political hero? B) Who was the world leader most entranced by Ronald Regan and his good ol' boy act?

Answers on a postcard please....

From today's Indy
“The great credit boom began in the mid-1980s, when the Conservatives removed all the market restraints that created those frustrating ‘mortgage queues’. Until then, would-be buyers had to save for a deposit, were prevented from borrowing more than a fixed multiple of their annual earnings, and couldn’t increase their mortgage each time they felt in need of more spending money. The legislation that allowed Northern Rock to convert itself into a bank, so that it could expand by borrowing from other banks, was passed in 1986. Deregulation such as this has been central to the myth of the Thatcher years as the golden years of free enterprise and prosperity. Mr Osborne is 37. You would think he was old enough to remember.”

Yes also saying the Government was taxing the real economy into non existence and the country could not or live on cultural alienation advisers or welfare.
For ten years it has been a mystery to me how this basket case idleness rewarding Stalag with its anti business and anti aspiration environment has actually achieved amazing growth. Well now we know,stealing from its own children!
The one single exception to Labour’s instinct to boss and regulate has been the City where they were zealots about magic money Private equity who supported them financially and was left alone .I think it is fair to say the Conservative party might have made the same mistake , it is not proven and I hope not . Historically however we tend to be conservative .We would not have destroyed the real economy , left a huge untrained idle class and covered with immigration, taxed real business into penury and crated a vast parasitical public Sector which now sits like a great Fat Monk on a tiny little private sector donkey. We would not have let National real debt get out of control , neglected the infa-structure energy and every productive element of the nation.

Gloat while you can Bob I see Brown skipping about but the bills are yet to be paid .
I am actually in the crap myself and need all my energy for earning a living so I will not be commenting on this blog , or any other any more

Cheerio and best of luck

Different kinds of regulation. The conservative opposition to regulation is about the asinine and excessive sort of regulations that restrict small businesses and private endeavour: the sort of rules that result in school trips being cancelled because discretion is subjugated to the rule of the letter. That is not the same as the regulatory system that underpins the financial system. You're blurring the line between two very distinct forms of regulation.

You will find it difficult to find any Conservative calling for MORE regulation. What you will find is Conservatives calling for better and more effective regulation. There is a difference which even the more stupid Labour councillor could spot.

Gordon has now single handily sorted out the money problems of the whole world, no wonder they're a bit miffed. Just watch those polls hit home when folk feel safe again. We're not doomed, Cameron and Ossy are doomed,don't panic, we won't, they will. Time to get those holiday photos over to The Mail again , no chance, it'll take more than a few pics in the glossies this time. All together now " keep the red flag..............." oops, do we still do that ?

Iain... the floor is yours. Point us to your posts on the need for changes to the regulatory system... (before September 2008 when even a failed Tory candidate could work out something was wrong).

newmania... you will remain a legend on these pages. I hope things turn out OK for you and that one day you will pass by this way again to entertain and inform us all, in varying degrees.

Great comment by Mr Peston at the BBC yesterday:
"I've also been musing on the historic significance of tonight's events, and I think it can perhaps be seen as the death of Thatcherism, or at least of an important strand of the dominant ideology of the 1980s and 1990s.

It was Margaret Thatcher who in a series of bold reforms from 1979 onwards gave the City the freedom to trade in everything and anything.

She removed restrictive practices, she encouraged the free flow of capital to and from anywhere in the world, she created the notion of the City as the Great British Success.

For the liberalisation of the City to end with a quartet of our biggest and proudest banks being forced to put out the begging bowl to Government, well that is a moment in ecnomic history - which may well, ultimately, be as significant as the nationalisations of the 1940s and the privatisations of the 1980s."

There is one good reason why most political blogs weren't running with the theme that the tri-partite regulatory system introduced by Brown in 1997 was inadequate and/or ineffective. It's because it's really rather tedious. The interplay between the FSA, the BoE and the Treasury, governed by memoranda of understanding and also by unwritten relationships does not make for interesting blogging. Until of course, it becomes crucial.

So, no I didn't write about it on my blog. I did write a presentation on it for my firm, but they had to listen to it, they were paid to.

Matthew... the man's a bloody communist!

Tim, you mean before blogging about it someone would have to understand what they are talking about, rather than sticking their tongue out and scweaming "It's all Brown's fault". I see.

Well there is that too, but how interested would you have been in an explanation of the Credit Default Swap market before the last couple of weeks?

I shall miss newmania's ramblings rather in the way that I miss the ache in my right shoulder (now fixed thanks to the wondrous NHS physiotherapy service (waiting time 6 minutes thanks to Labour)).

I see from his blog that he's packing in to go back to serious work; I wonder how he thinks most bloggers spend most of their time. It rather reinforces my view that many right-wingers must struggle to walk and chew gum simultaneously.

But, being a soft hearted leftie, I wish him, Iain and all their deluded chums well as the world waves bye bye (as unexpectedly rapidly as it did to Soviet-style communism) to the era in which their curiously simplistic ideas were fashionable...

It's not all Browns fault, just most of the UK current crop of problems and with him saying that for the 'nationalised' banks they must return lending to 2007 levels isn't that just re-inflating his bubble and postponing the bust

Tim, it sounds fascinating... but then again, if I was bored and uninterested I probably wouldn't feel qualified to blog an instant solution now... and that's what Iain is doing.

All I know is my money is safe and that for me means a hell of a lot.

Gordon Brown has been Chancellor for 10 years and did nothing to stop this happening - so it's fair to blame him.

But we know - labour aren't good on personal responsibility - always someone else to blame.

Come the revolution.

Welcome on board, comrade. Come the revolution, eh? Any idea what day that is likely to happen? I'll make sure I don't leave the washing out.

Errm, by the way... who's leading us?

By happy coincidence yesterday was Thatchers Birthday.

I trust you will all join me in wishing her a remission of Altzheimers (sic) so that she may understand it is the end of Thatcherism and Reganomics.

Her dreams and schemes are now dust.

What a pity it was that so many people suffered economically for her experiment.

GW

It is interesting to note that the reforms leading up to and including the Big Bang in 1986 survived two recessions and at least 2 bubbles bursting ... whereas the reforms introduced by the 2000 Act have survived ... well ... one boom and one bubble (until the boom turned to bust and the bubble burst). When the 2000 Act was going through Parliament lawyers with expertise in this area were questioning the wisdom of a 'purposive' regulatory regime with split lines of responsibility.

Providing new lines of capital to the Banks in trouble is a fairly obvious starting point when you have decided that the capital requirements of the banks are at the core of concerns about their liquidity and viability.

What concerns me is that we have a similar position in relation public finance - even before the credit crunch really begins to bite. At the end of the boom, would it not have been better to have considerably lower levels of state debt rather than a situation where, due to the massaging of the figures and the selective choosing of periods for the 'economic cycle' it is very difficult to assess what is the actual position save that it is very much worse than it was before GB and TB went on their spending spree ... with our money and our credit?

BTW, the provision of capital, effectively buying a stake in quoted companies is not the same as 'nationalisation' as practised in the UK in the post-war period. Have a look at the various acts in which industries were nationalised and you will see the differences.