Nonsense on Stilts: United Kingdom Perspectives on the Global Financial Crisis and Governance

This article explores the governance implications for the UK of the financial crisis. It locates the UK’s system as a differentiated polity within a system of multi-level governance, noting the importance of EU institutions in reassessing the regulatory framework for the finance industry. It explores the historical, political and theoretical context and argues that the reforms so far advocated remain a part of the new public management (NPM) paradigm. There is something of a mix of dynamics involved, and although the debates taking place are wide-ranging, they are rooted in the structures of the past and the present. UK governance needs to invest in its values as well as its institutions.