Is the Governor right? Central bankers, as well as big bankers, did not cover themselves with glory. Critics would say that he got many things wrong himself. He should (as he admits) have warned earlier. He should have acted faster when the interbank market froze in 2007. He should have done more quantitative easing (or less). Perhaps so, but Mervyn King's broad argument is surely right, and it matters hugely not just for finance, but for politics, and for all of us. Anthony Trollope wrote a brilliant novel about a financial collapse called The Way We Live Now. That was in the 1870s. The King critique goes to the heart of the way we live in 2011.