Lamont says he realised he would be moved the day before, in May 1993.
He went so some event – I think Portillo’s birthday at a Spanish place where lots of politicians were attending, and it struck him that Major, Richard Ryder (chief whip), Norman Fowler (chairman) hadn’t turned up, and was suspicious.

Very clear analysis, thanks (though giving the BofE a remit on house price inflation controls would face enormous geographical problems)

I think all sites like this (non-partisan, tolerant, humorous etc) can be enlivened by a Lamont anecdote. My point about him was simply that he was regarded as a frightened rabbit in the financial crisis of the ERM fiasco.

There is no great “free-market” solution being offered to counter the almost socialistic proposals of Brown. Lamont said “we might have better followed the US” – the operative word being “might” , reminiscent of, well, “erm…”

Lamont looked daggers.

Major did order the Treasury boost spending quite a bit in 1991, partly for the NHS.

The ERM was a flawed mechanism being used for political union but it did force us to drive inflation down properly for once – in Britain – and we were kicked out at the right time.
We should have got out before the Black Wednesday itself, which was hugely humiliating, although Lamont says he wanted to get out quickly in the morning.

Afterwards, Lamont and Major put in place a sensible policy of inflation targeting which has served us well until now, effectively locked in by Labour with the Bank, but housing inflation should have been part of the remit.

He was quite right – the idea that you should have trust in individuals to behave altrruistically is dead.

Thankfully, Cameron’s former colleague Lamont is nowhere near the levers of power now, though he’s still wheeled out over the parapet to give a “view”.

How this recession is handled will be I hope very different from the early nineties approach, which seemed to be that nothing should be done to help businesses through, nothing should be done that might disturb the precious free market and its brutal effects.

Some interesting snippets:-

Public Sector workers recognising that their jobs will be vulnerable :-In the YouGov Poll of 10/10 the biggest “sectional” slippages in Con vote & Con/Lab gap from their 8/5 Poll( a peak for Cons & low for Lab) were “North” & “18-34s”.So will areas with high public sector employment of young families now see a vote for Labour as the best way of keeping their jobs?

People saying they will now save more to provide a cushion-even keeping money under the bed:-That will excacerbate the downturn.

The FSA staff portrayed as ill qualified to carry out the supervisory jobs they were landed with.

Some lovely GB quotes:-

circa 2004/2005:-

Congratulating The City on it’s “Dynamism in developing modern instruments of finance”

In the House saying “In any other decade a housing bubble would have led to bust”

then 2008-”The Age of Irresponsibility is over”

Priceless.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but aren’t the two largest “British” banks that had to be rescued HBOS, including the former Bank of Scotland, and RBS, i.e. Royal Bank of Scotland? Both historically had their headquarters in central Edinburgh, George Square if I remember rightly, even if they have subsequently moved to Halifax or the Southern outskirts of Edinburgh. And I don’t know the exact constituency boundaries in the Scottish capital, but isn’t Alastair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, MP for Edinburgh Central?

And, as has been pointed out, doesn’t Alex Salmond, who seems to have been keeping notably quiet over the crisis at any rate in relation to the London media, have RBS connections as an ex-employee?

Few people in England at the moment seem to see the national aspects of the international financial crisis as anything other than British, but the Barnett formula in respect to Scottish local government has started to cause English resentment. If the solution to the banking crisis gets to be seen as a Scottish Prime Minister and a Scottish Chancellor of the Exchequer bailing out Scotitsh based banks with tens of billions of pounds. mostly raised on the basis of English wealth and tax revenue, this will leave the Barnett formula at the starting post as a source of political discontent. It may well not be the Scots but the English breaking up the Union. I know we shouldn’t express opinions here, as opposed to pointing out psephological matters, but even as somebody who has in the past voted nationalist I hope for all our sakes we don’t have such a political meltdown on top of the economic one.

If Scotland had been independent now, the Edinburgh banks would have left their country nearly as bankrupt as Iceland.

If Scotland becomes independent in the future, English voters may well demand that Scotland alone takes on the Government guarantees to Edinburgh based banks, particularly as they were made by ministers from Scottish constituencies.

It is far too early to tell what psephological effects the current banking and finance crises will have. People have more urgent things on their minds than how they will vote in 2010. But, as has been pointed out in various Westminster based media, it may well be bad news for the SNP.