Will Hutton has reviewed a batch of books on the Crash in today's Guardian. Unsurprisingly, he finds they add up to a serious indictment of global financial capitalism. Nobody could begrudge him a touch of satisfaction in reaching this conclusion – after all, his 1996 bestseller The State We're In pointed to many of the flaws in the financial system. If only the Labour Government which won power in 1997 had paid attention – John Kay (who's writing simply tremendous stuff about this in his FT column at the moment) pointed out recently the disastrous results of Labour's unthinking love affair with bankers. Many of us in the UK think our government is still in thrall to them, failing to take advantage of the state ownership of major banks to correct some of the flaws in the way the system serves us. This view is shared by many in the US as well: Simon Johnson, formerly chief economist of the IMF, has a stellar article in The Atlantic about it.

I was invited to the launch on Monday of Gillian Tett's Fool's Gold, one of the books reviewed by Will H. Sadly I couldn't go due to a prior commitment to a dinner with some bankers. And once again at that dinner I had one of the extraordinary conversations – there have been many in recent weeks – in which bankers express their dismay and anger about being seen as the guilty culprits, about threats to interfere with their staggering pay, about the danger of regulation ….. talk about being in denial. So many in the banking community have no understanding about the centre of gravity of public opinion, as if it were irrational that bankers should be seen to have a role in the banking crisis.