How the Government is surrendering its biggest advantage

An interesting observation this morning by Chris Giles, the Economics Editor of the Financial Times:

It also emerged last night that the Bank, not the Financial Services Authority, would take responsibility for the new special resolution regime to deal with failing banks and its officials would sit in Threadneedle Street.

The trigger to put a bank into the special bankruptcy procedure would still sit with the FSA, but the Bank would have a significant power of oversight of that process.

With the Bank getting the resolution regime and Sir John moving aside next year, leaving a vacancy that might be filled by Paul Tucker, the Bank's head of markets, the Treasury has adopted all the recent Conservative proposals on financial stability.

After similar reversals of policy on inheritance tax and non-domiciled taxation, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will have more ammunition to claim he is having a greater effect on policy than the chancellor.

Taking Conservative proposals and implementing them has an obvious advantage - it robs the Tories of any practical ideas they advance and leaves them with all the impractical or unpopular ones.

For that reason, nicking Tory ideas has been a standard Brown tactic.

Leadenly, he has failed to realise that it has stopped working.

The same tactic is now simply robbing the Government of one of its best, probably actually its single best, political advantages - the credibility of governing that ensures that you are seen as the anchor point and all change is seen as risky.