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Pittsburgh is last chance for revolution

If they really want to change things at the G20 summit, Brown and Obama must heed Lord Turner's attack on the banks

A whiff of cordite is hanging in the air again over Canary Wharf. Just when all hope was evaporating that the great financial crash would lead to meaningful change, up pops a surprise radical from within to lob a metaphoric grenade into the cashmere-filled coffee shops of London's financial heartland.

Combined with the sight of climate change protesters camped out across the river, Adair Turner's explosive call for an all-out tax assault on the "socially useless" bankers has revived the revolutionary mood.

Lord Turner might have once jokingly earned the nickname "Red Adair" for cosying up to New Labour while running the CBI, but in every other regard, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority is the very epitome of the modern establishment man. To see his thoughtful interview in Prospect sniffily dismissed this morning by the Treasury is to realise just how far he has stuck his neck out.

We've been here before of course. Last time it was anti-capitalist protesters on the streets ahead of the London G20 summit, when politicians momentarily united to condemn the "casino banking" that led us into this mess. Urged on by France and Germany, Gordon Brown and Barrack Obama signed up to a range of promises that sounded distinctly revolutionary at the time.

Unfortunately, once they returned home to domestic pressures, the immense lobbying power of financial services overwhelmed and watered down reform proposals to the point where there was little action to back up the fine political rhetoric. All of which makes the forthcoming G20 rematch in Pittsburgh all the more interesting. Just as before, President Sarkozy is ratcheting up the pressure for change and just as before politicians in Britain and America are under pressure to respond to public anger. If they need a blueprint for how the Pittsburgh G20 might really change things, Lord Turner has just handed in a convincing draft communique.

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