Labour’s light-touch regulation meant Britain, with its free-wheeling City culture, felt the shock waves from the great financial crisis of 2008 more than most.
The response of then-prime minister Gordon Brown and an intellectually robust Treasury was impressive.
Brown and his chancellor Alistair Darling recognised they needed global and national strategies to fix the damage.
Senior and respected City figures Paul Myners and Shriti Vadera, with financial market clout, were drafted in to negotiate technical solutions with banks.
Brown focused on creating an international forum to prevent global meltdown.
Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, moving the tectonic plates of trade and finance, demands a similar, focused approach and a willingness to tap into expertise of all political stripes.
Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and most of the Cabinet lack commercial experience and wisdom – and look at sea.
All at sea: Sir Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and most of the Cabinet lack commercial experience and wisdom
At the national level, the lack of an industrial strategy and those to execute it with skill has left the Government naked.
It is in disarray over the future of the steel industry. A fanatical green strategy means the Government may have to pay to import coal from Japan to keep blast furnaces at Jingye-owned British Steel in Scunthorpe fired up.
A naive belief that unions know best means the Royal Mail could end up in the hands of the Czech Daniel Kretinsky.
Yet no one has a clue whether his Moscow-based fortune remains intact or the financing by Western banks is secure following market ructions.
BP has pivoted away from oil and faces tumbling gas earnings, hitting the share price. The bargain basement value could tempt Exxon or others to bid for it.
Speculation that it could happen is rife.
An Energy Department obsessed with Net Zero and which halted new North Sea drilling would be ill-equipped to deal with such an event. Nor would it have the expertise to create a national champion through a merger with Shell.
Starmer and Reeves have convinced themselves that Donald Trump and his advisers can be won over and the UK can negotiate an enduring US trade deal.
There are some 75 countries hoping for the same response as tensions and tariffs between China and America stack up ever higher.
The current imbroglio reaches deep into the underpinnings of world financial order. The 30-year US Treasuries shakeout raises fundamental questions about debt levels across the globe, the future of the dollar as a reserve currency and whether international institutions are fit for purpose.
In The Guardian this week Gordon Brown recognised the need for synchronised global fiscal measures to combat trade mayhem and its impact on inflation, consumer confidence and investment.
He called for the $150billion lending capacity of the World Bank and the financing power of the IMF to be mobilised.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has a terrific opportunity to co-ordinate enhanced swap arrangements among central banks and agreed interest rate cuts by the G7. The moment has arrived to unfurl a safety net and preserve livelihoods across the globe.
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