Sir John Gieve that is, the former civil service mandarin and deputy governor of the Bank of England in charge of ‘financial stability.’
Speaking to the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston for an edition of Panorama Gieve, who was rudely sacked from the Bank when the credit crunch broke, says that the Bank failed to see the dangers in the credit binge that drove house prices up so fast and failed to raise interest rates or take other measures at the height of the lending boom in 2007.
Presumably he also acknowledges that it was too late in cutting them in the summer and early autumn of 2008 when the recession was already upon us (although, alarmingly, the official figures didn’t actually say it was).
Peston’s programme includes interviews with Gieve, Barclays CEO John Varley, Financial Services Authority boss Hector Sants and chancellor Alistair Darling.
It doesn’t look as though we’ll be hearing from Bank governor Mervyn King or Monetary Policy Committee member Professor Tim Besley, who wanted to increase interest rates in September.
Well you can’t blame them for keeping their heads down I suppose. But wouldn’t a resignation or two be in order?