Today The Times published an extract of Ed Balls’ soon-to-be-published memoir, Speaking Out: Lessons in Life and Politics, where he recounts playing a war game with Mervyn King and Callum McCarthy to test their strategy for a financial crisis.

Interesting to note that this game was played only a few short months before the collapse of the US housing market and the consequential financial crash experienced across the world. 

From Ed’s memoir:

It was a Thursday afternoon in late 2006. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, Callum McCarthy, the head of the Financial Services Authority, and I were being presented with a dangerous and fast-changing financial war-game scenario, designed by our officials at my request to test out our mechanisms for dealing with a future financial crisis should one arrive. Read more >>

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