Britain has never recovered from the destruction of the financial crisis, with the economy still more than 20pc smaller than it would have been had its pre-crisis growth trajectory been maintained.
The difference with the US, which is where the crisis began, could hardly be greater. The US quickly clawed back all the economic losses of the crisis, and has done the same again with the pandemic.
While Europe faffed around with measures to cap banker bonuses and generally hem the financiers in, the US rebooted the system and moved quickly on.
We went even further than the Europeans here in Britain; we imposed special levies on the banks, we dug deep into their lending practices, and we quite unnecessarily forced them, at great expense, to ring fence their retail operations.
Today they can barely move for enforcement measures, “know your client” box-ticking and “unexplained wealth orders”.
The real…
