Banking On It

Attlee never went through with the 1945 Manifesto commitment to nationalise the clearing banks. At the time, he was probably right. But he went through with the nationalisation of the Bank of England. And the man who reversed that assertion of democratic political control over monetary policy went on to learn how right Attlee had been. An independent central bank, or anything like one, is an intolerable alternative government.

Mervyn King may be right. Mervyn King may be wrong. But the fact that he is in any position to overrule or override Ministers of the Crown accountable to Parliament is because Gordon Brown and Tony Blair reversed one of Labour’s great achievements and ended democratic political control over monetary policy. That reversal must itself be reversed as a matter of the utmost urgency.