I have never been happy with the obsession with the City as a means of generating wealth. Any money that they make is creamed off from the real economy. Sure, they provide a very important function but the rewards were far too high and encouraged recklessness.
There was too much emphasis on banking and not enough on other aspects of the economy. Blair and Brown were enthralled by the City bankers and overlooked everything else. Basically they didn't think that anything could ever go wrong and that we ought to be putting away something in reserve for when things went belly up.