Osborne’s own Permanent Secretary says the 2008 crash was “a banking crisis pure and simple”

George Osborne and the Tories have spent the past five years trying to argue that the 2008 global financial crisis – and the crash that followed – was a crisis of public spending. Yet Osborne’s own Permanent Secretary wrote an interesting piece back in March (which no-one seems to have picked up on) that said this:

“The 2008 crisis was a banking crisis pure and simple”

That’s pretty much Ed Miliband’s argument (and why he doesn’t accept that the global financial crisis was caused by sopending too much money). Incidentally, here’s a 2007 Times piece from George Osborne where a pre-crash Osborne was ruling out cuts and backing Labour spending levels:

And yet most of the media – The Times included – appear to have forgotten that George Osborne used to support the same levels of government spending that he now (wrongly) claims caused the crash.