We live in frightening times. Markets are in freefall; economies are in turmoil; the financial system is on the brink. People want simple explanations and easy answers. They want to know who to blame for the mess and what can be done to clear it up. Just as well, then, that there is no shortage of politicians ready to fulfil this need. The dictionary defines ‘cant’ as insincere, pious or moralistic talk. If cant was a commodity, it would be the first big bubble of the post-credit-crunch world.
Already debate over the credit crunch is being reduced in some quarters to a series of simplistic narratives in which all bankers are greedy, markets are evil, governments are good and capitalism is doomed. Politicians who showed no interest in the City whatsoever for a decade — except to sing its praises as the engine of the UK economy — now claim to have seen this crisis coming for years.
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