No triumph

To regard today as a triumph, as some in government seem to do, is bizarre. And it misjudges the public mood. For this is no triumph. It is a necessary but desperate last-ditch attempt to prevent catastrophe.

Regulatory failings

For we should never, ever have reached this point. There was nothing inevitable about it. Our banks could and should have behaved more responsibly and taken fewer risks. Indeed, those that did, like HSBC, have been rewarded for their prudence by emerging relatively unscathed. Our regulators could and should have spotted the risky bets many of the banks were taking and stopped them.

That's what some bank regulators around the world did, such as in Spain, but not here in Britain.

Brown's 'mistakes'

When I hear Gordon Brown claim that all the problems we face "came from America" and the expensive solutions devised around the world were "made in Britain", it makes me wonder whether he is prepared to learn anything from his own mistakes.

It was in Britain not America where families borrowed more than any in the world, and where we became so dependent on the success of financial services. It was in Britain not America that a government based its entire economic policy on the delusional belief that boom and bust had been abolished.

It is extraordinary, now that the economic record of the past decade has been shredded and the economic policies pursued by the government over that period are discredited beyond repair, that Mr Brown never once paused for breath and said: "Yes, I was the chancellor for the 10 years these problems emerged and I acknowledge my responsibility for what has happened."

I can promise you, prime minister, that we'll help you with the emergency action to save the banks, but we will hold you to account for your failures. You presided over the biggest economic disaster of our lifetime and we will not let you forget it.