Quite obviously the man who has presided over it, either as Chancellor, with responsibility for managing the nation’s finances and economy, or as Prime Minister, ultimately responsible for all govenment policy.

As Cameron said yesterday:

Who was it who said that he, and he alone, had rewritten the laws of economics to end boom and bust? The answer is our prime minister, the then chancellor, Gordon Brown. And my message to Gordon Brown is this: ‘You have had your boom, and your reputation is now bust.’

And George Osborne reiterated today:

While the regulation failed, the debt soared and no one called time on the age of irresponsibility

I’m not, however, convinced yet by the idea of an Office for Budget Responsibility. It’s almost as if they are saying that they don’t quite trust themselves to run the economy properly. But it can also be seen as an attempt to ensure that economic measures are not enacted in order to try and get short-term political benefits – and, when established, as a means by which all governments can be properly scrutinised when it coems to their economic policy and prevent another architect of an age of irresponsibility getting beyond their blueprints.