Wise words, Gordon

CRITICS may point out that as a lighttouch regulator, Gordon Brown was once very close to the bankers he now wants to throw behind bars.

Tony Blair even awarded knighthoods to such figures as Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin of RBS, content not to ask awkward questions while tax revenues flooded in from the City to finance his lavish spending plans.

Only now does Mr Brown tell us he’d seen worrying changes in Goodwin, whom he had first met years before he joined RBS.

‘By the time the bank collapsed,’ he writes in his memoirs, ‘he had from his company a private suite in the Savoy costing £700,000 a year, a fleet of 12 chauffeur- driven Mercedes limousines with RBS emblazoned all over them, and he regularly used a private jet at the weekend – whether for boar hunting in Spain or following the glamorous F1 circuit around the world.’

To be fair to Mr Brown, his handling of the fallout from the crash was a masterclass. History may even credit him with saving our financial system.

Furthermore, as his memoirs make clear, he has now learned the vital importance of showing no mercy to City wrongdoers.

Indeed, the Mail fully endorses his warning: ‘If bankers who act fraudulently are not put in jail, with their bonuses returned, assets confiscated and banned from future practice, we will only give a green light to similar risk-laden behaviour in new forms.’

Mr Brown makes an equally valid point when he writes that his reluctance to express emotions may have limited his appeal in this touchy-feely age of Twitter.

Isn’t this a damning reflection on the shallowness of our times – and a salutary lesson to be wary of being duped by another Mr Blair?