It’s 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but governments have failed to make changes necessary to prevent a similar collapse.

Back in the 1930s, the US government responded by introducing new laws that made it illegal for the local high street banks to make risky gambling decisions.

Today, if anything, the financial sector is growing more powerful and wealthier than ever. More and more of the wealth created across the world is going into the pockets of the richest 1 per cent and via methods that mean they seldom pay any tax. The result is that across the Western world inequality is getting dramatically worse and the lives of ordinary people are being squeezed. It is the anger of ordinary people responding to this injustice that fuelled the votes to elect Trump and to take Britain out of the EU.

To understand how we could cope with this, we need to look at the history of how the financial services became a predominant global power.

Here, over the centuries there have been several unsuccessful attempts to reform the City of London's financial centre. Following Labour’s creation, one of its central planks was opposition to the City and the independent Bank of England. Herbert Morrison said: "Is it not time London faced up to the pretentious buffoonery of the City and wipe[d] it of the municipal map. [It] is now a square mile of entrenched reaction, the home of the devilry of modern finance and that journalistic abortion, the stunt press…  an administrative anachronism."

Over the decades that followed Labour continued to pledge to abolish the corporation and include it in wider London government. As Labour's current shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said: "The traditional Labour position was to control the finances of the country in the long-term interests of its people."

In the run-up to 1945 Clement Attlee said: "Over and over again we have seen there is in this country another power than that which has its seat at Westminster. The City of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against the government… Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that… decided by the people. The first step in the transfer of this power is the conversion of the Bank of England into a state institution."

When the Bank of England was created in 1694 it was largely to provide credit for building our navy and ushered in a financial revolution which led to the creation of mortgage markets, Lloyds of London insurance, a stock exchange and the rapid expansion of overseas trade. But although Attlee's government did nationalise it, the bank had powerful cards to play, in particular its control over the nation's money, and although nationalised, it continued to be run by the same old Etonian merchant bankers.

When Wilson was elected in 1964 and discovered our trade deficit was twice what the outgoing Tories had admitted he gave in to pressure from the bank's governor to slash spending promises, causing him to say "Who is prime minister of this country, Mr Governor, you or me?"

Whilst the City continues to be a vastly powerful institution, it was transformed by Thatcher when she pushed through a massive deregulation of the financial sector in 1986.

Before then the City was dominated by the old Etonian elite, now it was overwhelmed by foreign financiers, turning it into a more international institution.

When Tony Blair became Labour's leader he did a deal with the City promising them not to increase regulation of their powers and practices, and he finally scrapped Labour's long-term commitment to incorporate the City into London government.

More bizarre was Blair's decision to change the balance of votes inside the City. Before Blair came to power 9,000 residents living in the City had one vote each but businesses in the City could vote as well and had 23,000 votes between them. Blair allowed them to increase their votes to 32,000.

The Guardian said he was giving companies “carte blanche to run the City.” Now the Bank of China, Moscow's Narodny bank, KPMG and Goldman Sachs vote in British elections.

Tony Benn was one of a few MPs who opposed this, saying: “We are considering a corrupt proposal, we are being asked to legalise the buying of votes for political purposes. The City is an offshore island moored in the Thames with a freedom that many other offshore islands would be glad to have.”

After the second world war, the creation of the Eurodollar market allowed US banks to shift money to London in order to avoid restrictions placed on them in the US.

Britain made matters worse when it allowed many former colonies to become tax havens. Just one building in the Cayman Islands is the legal headquarters for 12,000 corporations.

In just the second quarter of 2009 the UK got net financing of $332 billion from three of its Crown dependencies which had just become offshore tax havens.

Some presidents have tried to tackle this. In 1961, Kennedy tried to get Congress to pass legislation to "Drive these tax havens out of existence." His assassination brought that to an end and, half a century on, President Obama's promise to sponsor a Bill to stop tax haven abuse in 2008 was eviscerated by financial lobbyists working in congress.

Here, the government claims there is only £20 billion worth of tax evasion and avoidance, but some economists estimate that it could be £120bn. Since Margaret Thatcher deregulated the banking system and Clinton abolished the bank regulation laws in 1998 the world has been transformed with wealth being shifted all around the planet so that the super-rich and giant corporations don't have to pay their share.

The consequence of this in Britain has been a huge increase in inequality – it has doubled in the last 40 years, so it is now as bad as in 1914. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would almost certainly be committed to reforming this appalling and unaccountable concentration of power, so we can expect the financial sector giants to do everything in their power to stop Jeremy getting into Downing Street.

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