In accordance with my long stated policy of making this blog mainly about current government policy and what to do next I have not been discussing the Labour government’s great recession and banking crash of 2007-10 for many years. We talked about it at the time. I explained how Brown and Darling could have avoided the worst of the banking squeeze that undermined the banks. I with the Opposition and others had warned of the excessive credit and money causing inflation in the long run up to the crisis. I blamed them for keeping money and credit too loose on the way up and making it too tight on the way down along with their chums at the Bank of England.

They put us on a merciless big dipper, said it was caused by the rest of the world, trashed their reputation for economic competence and duly lost the election. As always the public blamed the incumbents not worldwide trends and in this case were clearly right to do so.

Labour lived under the shadow of their disaster for many years. They won in 2024 not because they had rebuilt trust with millions of voters they had lost but because the Conservative vote collapsed out of anger about what the Conservative government had done and not done, with mass abstentions and votes for parties that could not win that election carrying Labour into office.

In eighteen months Labour have halved their small support levels of the 2024 election and lost more of their rating for economic competence. They have so far put inflation, unemployment, illegal migration, taxes, borrowing, energy prices and closures of business up, and failed to deliver much by way of better public service for all the extra money spent on wage rises and more public sector staff.

Into this mess Gordon Brown decides to go on the media, possibly with the agreement of Keir Starmer, to demand changes with the way things are done to tackle the abuses he allowed or helped create in markets, banking and the economy 18 years ago. Bring it on! He has just made Labour’s worst days 18 years ago relevant to their worst days so far under this government, with the help of his new enemy Mr Mandelson who he brought back into the Cabinet and recommended for a peerage.

Gordon Brown has now made allegations about what Mandelson did, but these are all matters subject to a police investigation to see what evidence there is. Today Mr Mandelson is not guilty of breaking any law and faces no charges. Gordon Brown implies there are issues other than or as well as possible misconduct in public office that need looking into. Time will tell if there is anything that can be proven.

Gordon Brown pleads guilty himself to the same gross error Keir Starmer admits he made of welcoming Mandelson into the heart of government and believing him. Starmer and Brown are joined together in claiming Mandelson was a liar to both of them, and claiming that he both let the Brown government down and now the Starmer government. This is a far more serious crisis because a PM and a former PM both say they put a liar at the heart of government and both say he did damage. In Gordon Brown’s case he says he did not know at the time what damage Mandelson was doing and in Starmer’s case the damage is visible and tearing his government apart.Only they know what Mandelson did say to them, and will need to produce documents to prove their charge of lies.

2007-10 was a disaster for the UK economy, banks and markets. It took years of patient and difficult work to rebuild the strength of the banks and to get public spending and borrowing under some control. Labour MPs need to read the runes of 2007-10 and recognise if they make the wrong decisions about who to lead them and what action they take to improve the economy they could revisit some of the darkest economic and market days of their previous government. Mr Mandelson’s tenure as Ambassador to the US has ended by doing damage to the important US relationship.

Gordon Brown’s list of things to do to try to purge the two crises will not give us growth and lower prices. It seems more designed to make Mandelson take the blame for all failures rather than sort out today’s difficulties of policy. They do need a fair enquiry into Mandelson’s actions then and now. More than that they need new immigration and economic policies that work and are in line with public demands. Attacking workers, savers and strivers and giving away power money and islands to foreign interests is angering many more people. Smash the gangs? Give us the fastest growth? Keep taxes down ? When do they do any of these things?

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