This afternoon, 45 men and women will begin the long task of reciting an astonishing saga of manipulation, deception and the betrayal of thousands of people at a theatre in central Reykjavik.

The unusual story – a 2,000 page political report – will take them four to five days to intone, taking in the events leading up to Iceland's far-reaching financial collapse that saw three banks go down in three days and its currency crippled.

There are already formal criminal investigations into suspected market manipulation, fraud, excessive loans to related parties and tax evasion connected to the banks, Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki. . . .  Then there are the lessons we can learn about the chronic failure of oversight in the UK that allowed these banks to operate in a regulatory black hole on our soil.

Like my colleague, Lawrie Holmes, I’m dismayed at the contrasting complacency in Britain – how everything appears to have gone back to normal. It’s time to lay bare old City practices

Maybe the UK would need a similar wholesale collapse, rather than a near-catastrophe, for the City to engage in any similar introspection and hand-wringing. But I’d still like to see independent report, or series of reports, snooping into those darkest corners of the British banking system that are undeniably still in the shade and poorly understood by those politicians and taxpayers that stumped up the cash to bail them out.  Rowena Mason - 12-Apr-10.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/rowenamason/100004839/iceland-has-its-truth-report-into-the-financial-crisis-%E2%80%93-now-what-about-one-for-the-uk/