The crisis is not the fault of short sellers or investors who listened to the property tele-evangelists and speculated in buy-to-lets. Nor can the banks that lent mortgages at 125% of a property’s value be held culpable. The one man primarily responsible for Britain’s banking crisis is Gordon Brown himself.
Short sellers speculating on share prices do not bring down banks. They add to the mêlée but they can’t be blamed – it’s their job. The root cause, which manifests in different guises depending on the decade, is unfettered land speculation.

When New Labour was elected in 1997, Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer. I submitted a report to him, explaining that it would all end in tears in late 2007. Crashing house prices would then drive us into a depression. Brown could have stopped it happening.

I explained what he had to do to prevent people from losing their homes and jobs. I briefed his key advisers, sitting in the room off the Chancellor’s office in the Treasury. And I repeated the warnings in Boom Bust (2005).

When Gordon turned his blind eye on the evidence, a historic opportunity was lost. That’s why he is the one who’s guilty of short selling – selling the British public short with his wilful mismanagement of the economy.