The Conservatives last night called for a rebalancing of the UK economy, saying for too long it had been over-reliant on financial services and too focused on the south-east of England.
The declaration came as David Cameron and his frontbench team took part in 13 countrywide business forums under the slogan of Get Britain Working - just 24 hours before Gordon Brown sets off today on a three-day tour of England and Wales.
At a forum in Cardiff, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said the dominance of the City of London had left Britain "very exposed" and promised that a future Conservative government would offer help to other sectors of the economy.
"We need to do more to rebalance this economy, make other industries more successful, make manufacturing more successful," he said.
"We are a very south-east England-based economy; too much so. We need to have those (regional) areas better connected with the south-east and not wholly dependent on what goes on in the Square Mile of London."
In Manchester, Mr Cameron told his audience that the role of fat cat City bankers had to be carefully examined. "We need to look at the behaviour of banks and financiers and work out what was irresponsible and if anything was criminal."
He noted how in America some financial chiefs were facing prosecution in the courts and that the UK should have the same approach.
Arguing that the Bank of England should be put back in charge of regulating credit and debt in the economy, the Tory leader said: "There is no one to call time on the level of debt in the economy. As well as good regulation we need a good regulator."
In one contribution from the audience, Mr Cameron was accused of being "on the wrong side of the argument" to the rest of the world as governments proposed huge increases in spending to stimulate their economies.
However, the Conservative leader said he agreed with the International Monetary Fund, among other banking organisations, in that fiscal stimulus was good only "if you could afford it".
Click here to comment on this story...
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article