Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
Nice article exposing Darling as having to clean up Gordons Financial Mess
Guardian/Observer: Don't blame Alistair Darling. He's just the brush and bucket
Darling used to joke that he was spending his time hunting around Great George Street 'trying to find out where Gordon has hidden the money'. Having rummaged down the back of all the Treasury's sofas, Mr Darling discovered that there was no hidden money. It had all gone
Posted by enuii @ 09:31 AM (614 views) Add Comment
11 Comments
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1. denzil said...
An interesting read!
On thing that strikes me about various themes on this blog is that two consistent themes stand out; the first is that there will be an HPC (bit of a no-brainer really considering this site), the second is that Gordon Brown will eventually be unmasked as being a truly awful chancellor. I cannot recall a single article in the mainstream media from around 2 or so years back that were painting Brown's running of the economy as bad but in contrast bloggers on here were stating that Brown's economy was not a miracle but a mirage that would one day be exposed. How right those bloggers were.
2. brian t said...
There have been a few similar articles in the last few days correctly pointing the finger at Broon. An unusual outbreak of common sense by the media, a sign of the summer silly season, or good spin-work by Darling? Either way, a bit of long-term perspective is a welcome addition, compared to the usual blundering from crisis to crisis.
I think the Tories are also correct to back off Darling a bit: had there been an election last year, and a Conservative government in office this year, it's hard to see how things could have been fundamentally different.
3. paul said...
No-one has ever claimed the current situation to be Darling's fault. That's missing the point. Darling IS to blame for the following really really daft ideas though:
1. Northern Rock bailout with £100bn of public money.
2. Other impoverished banks £50bn public money shower.
So far, his track record has not been good. I wonder how much the government is looking to bend its PSBR by? £150bn by any chance?
4. paranoia blue said...
Cleaning up after the Brown mess???
Obviously, Legal tender = Loo roll
“Financial skitters” here we come!
5. Fatjock said...
Like all our politicians he's fully aware of the mess they've got us in. Spare him no tears, we'll be paying for his pension in years to come. Like all the other dross in Westminster.
6. nooneo said...
Denzil @ 1.
"the second is that Gordon Brown will eventually be unmasked as being a truly awful chancellor."
I too think that Gordon Brown has simply presided over a huge boom financed by dodgy credit and the assumption that everything was/is rosy in the economic garden. I think the labour party have continued in their time honoured roll of taxing and spending, it's only they inherited the tories economic environment that took 18 years to carve out (at great expense). Don't get me wrong I am firmly left of centre (in my opinion) but our (party) political system is at the root core of our problems. The labour party may have inherited the tories sense on how to let business/industry do it's own thing, but they have just thrown money at problems and most simply haven't gone away.
They have simply relied on a booming housing market, with all it's subsiduaries, our booming financial centre, and the flexibility of our now buggered about workforce, to finance their political aims and because the substance of their spending has resulted in very little when you pull the rug from beneath them they start making up policy as they go along and are being exposed daily as a load of dead beats who appear to know absolutely nothing abnout running a political system let alone a country.
7. denzil said...
In addition to the booming house market it cannot be forgotten that the waters that Brown crossed during his period as chancellor were relatively benign and almost close to perfect. When it comes to Brown's boast of consecutive quarters of growth consider this:
- Credit was incredibly cheap. This fueled HPI which turned houses in to cash machines, which in turn created growth in the high street.
- Inflation was easy to contain, not through Brown's prudence but by the emergence of incredibly cheap goods from China and India
- Growth was again boosted by massively high migration to the UK
- Brown was handed a stable economy with low inflation, low borrowing and low taxes from the Tories.
It really irks me when Brown boasts of his miracle economy, which truly is a myth. He has close to nothing in the way of a tough trial during his period in charge and actually was handed a very stable economy from Kenneth Clarke. Clarke's period in charge saw personal tax rates fall along with government spending and inflation was low (2%-3%) and had stable for three to four years prior to Labour victory. It was Clarke who reformed the monetary policy framework and would have handed complete independence on rates to the BoE. Tony Blair's economic advisor is even quoted as stating that Gordon Brown inherited the best economy of any chancellor in living memory. What Brown has done is borrowed, borrowed and borrowed some more. Brown's excessive borrowing is just about being paid for by the individual tax burden, much of this burden is masked as stealth tax. Britains national debt has continued to grow under Brown. We are now in the position where raising taxes or cutting public spending are the only options and we are not even in recession and employment levels are very high.
Two points stand out for me:
1) If the economic miracle was so great why has government spending ballooned and why do we have nothing stashed away for the bad times?
2) Why is Brown's golden rule likely to be torn up?
Gordon Brown is politically a dead duck. In addition to his financial mess one thing that concerns me is that we will most likely enter another period of "single party politics". Labour have yet again shown they cannot manage the economy (or their own party funds). A healthy society should have a keenly fought general election but it concerns me that the Labour party seem quite content to follow Brown limping and crawling to the next election only to get completely thrashed.
8. tick tock said...
Paul,
Come on, you don't really think that bailing out these banks was the personal decision of Darling do you?
I guess, that as he is at the helm of The Treasury he is therefore technically responsible for the decision(s), but I doubt very much that the decision was his. I cannot imagine how anybody taking over the Treasury when Darling did could possibly hope to attain a good record (before, as you have said,the post 2012 period maybe)
I agree that the bail outs stink, but it's perhaps a little unfair to lay the blame with Darling for them (or for the many more to follow either)
9. Baudot said...
The Gaurdrain on Sunday "Where has all the money gone ?".
.
The Gradurain midweek; page after page of jolly nice public sector job adverts (with taxpayer funded final salary pension too).
.
The Gaurnain on Saturday, "No rocket science this week".
10. Mytimeisnigh said...
They know they are on their way out and are hell bent on leaving the Conservatives with the largest mess possible...Then they can say 'see we know how to run an economy and the sheeple will believe us, cause now you're in power and it's a depresion' and only people who have half a brain will see through this and then labour will return to power, only to make things even worse.
11. Mytimeisnigh said...
They know they are on their way out and are hell bent on leaving the Conservatives with the largest mess possible...Then they can say 'see we know how to run an economy and the sheeple will believe us, cause now you're in power and it's a depresion' and only people who have half a brain will see through this and then labour will return to power, only to make things even worse.