Mervyn King vs Gordon Brown

Did Mervyn King pull his punches today? The governor of the Bank of England poured praise on president Obama's "radical" proposals for the US banking system and declared that "the most important thing is that we are prepared to countenance major reform". Let's be clear: King did not say that the UK government was not prepared to be radical. Nor did he argue that every­thing that happens in the US should happen here. But he did point out how much larger the UK banking industry is as a proportion of GDP. And he did highlight how a withdrawal of the implicit guarantee to UK banks would not be believed by the markets today. King sounded like a man who would have been more candid if only there wasn't an election around the corner.