Paul Myners, ‘tower of strength’ in financial crisis, dies aged 73 | Paul Myners

Paul Myners, the City grandee and former Labour minister brought in to government to tackle the 2008 financial crisis, has died at the age of 73.

Regarded as an influential figure in both the square mile and politics for his time advising the former prime minister Gordon Brown on the historic bailout of the British banking system, Baron Myners, of Truro in the county of Cornwall, died in the early hours of this morning.

His family confirmed in a statement that Myners had “passed away peacefully” at Chelsea & Westminster hospital in London.

Adopted from a Bath orphanage by a Cornish couple at the age of three, he started as an inner city school teacher, then became a financial journalist for the Daily Telegraph before moving into finance with the storied London investment bank NM Rothschild.

Myners was chairman of the Guardian Media Group (GMG), publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, between 2000 and 2008 when he stood down to take his ministerial post in Brown’s government as the global financial system was imploding.

The former prime minister led tributes to Myners, describing him as a “tower of strength” during the crisis.

“My thoughts are with Paul’s family,” said Brown. “After a successful career in finance [he] was persuaded in 2008 to enter public service and was a tower of strength, helping nationalise key banks and producing a plan to overcome the global financial crisis. His charitable work in his native Cornwall will be long…