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Was it not former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel who uttered words to the effect that a good crisis should never be wasted?

Well, it just may be that his words of wisdom skipped like a stone across the pond so to speak as Britain’s finance ministry is in a power play to take charge in the next banking crisis if and when it comes, and if one knows history, it will come in the fullness of time or the business cycle.

Here, Reuters is reporting that the UK’s Finance Minister, George Osborne, has published a new law “reforming the way Britain’s financial system is regulated and setting out who has ultimate authority in a crisis.”

This new law is aimed at making the most of the banking crisis that has afflicted London Town by scraping the Financial Services Authority in 2013 and forking over power to supervise banks and insurers to the Bank of England, the central bank that is akin to the Federal Reserve in the U.S.

Sir Osborne reportedly said that “When taxpayers’ money is at risk in a crisis this legislation gives the Chancellor (of the Exchequer) the power to direct the Bank of England to act.”

Osborne made his comments this week at the World Economic Summit underway in Davos, Switzerland, the annual gathering of financial high rollers from across the globe that looks to be a high browed powwow of the Glee Club in the rarified air of the Swiss Alps. In particular, the Chancellor would “direct specific funding help for individual entities, the system for winding up ailing banks as well as intervention to preserve stability.”

Sounds like code language for bailout, yodel ye he ho!

“There will be no ambiguity about who is in charge,” said Osborne.

Reuters notes that the financial crisis of 2008 that spread throughout the United Kingdom was in part a “failure of the 15-year-old ‘tripartite system of financial regulation at the time of the 2008 financial crisis was a lack of clear lines of responsibility between the BoE, the FSA and the Treasury.”

Meanwhile, the British Bankers’ Association contends that it is crucial for the Chancellor to take the reins of “crisis management decisions at an early stage – and sooner than the current proposals suggest.”

In other words, never let a good crisis go to waste.

Kyle Colona is a New York based freelance writer and a Feature Writer for the Compliance Exchange. He has an extensive background in legal and regulatory affairs in the financial services sector and his work has appeared in a variety of print and on-line publications.