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Brown's defeat, Brown's legacy

Wednesday, 15th October 2008

Apologies: 'soon' turned out to last much longer than I had hoped. But I'm back now and raring to post.

It's difficult to know where to start, so I'll start with today. A few people have - rightly - chastised me for not posting on the economic events of the past few weeks. I'll try to make up for lost time, but in the meanwhile you won't go wrong following Oliver Kamm's blog. When he was a banker and wrote part-time, he had a self-denying ordinance on matters financial. Self-denying it might have been; but it also denied us. One of the benefits of Oliver's switch to Grub Street has been that he is now sharing his views with us. Do read.

There has been so much 'Gordon's triumph, Gordon saves the world' guff peddled over the past week that I sometimes wondered if I had entered the twighlight zone. Triumph? Triumph? Daniel Finkelstein is bang on this morning:

This has not been a triumph for Mr Brown, it has been a catastrophe. It is said that he is having a good war. I think this success is confined to the fluency of his signature on the surrender documents. He is having a good war, in the same way that the Kaiser had a good war. Some of his supporters argue that the last week has been his Falklands. True. And he is General Galtieri.

...There is room for plenty of argument about whether the crisis could have been averted by better management. But this is almost beside the point. What matters is not whether the bust was avoidable. It is that the preceding boom was illusory.
The idea that boom and bust had been abolished was not a small claim among many. It was the central claim of this Government. It was the boast of boasts - the boast upon which all other boasts were built. And now it has been revealed as totally empty. Not triumph, then. Disaster. Not victory. Total, utter, dreadful defeat.

There is one aspect to this which needs more coverage: the expansion of the public sector. Why are we in so much debt? Why is borrowing so large? (See Fraser here.) In large measure because of the Brownite reckless expansion of the public spending, and the utter waste of the extra billions thrown down the money pit. Why will taxes have to go up in future? Again, in large measure to finance the protected public sector jobs and pensions. This is Brown's fault, to the nth degree.

It is a basic error of logic to argue that because Brown is not responsible for all our current problems, he is responsible for none of them. But that is what he wants us to believe Yes, he's had a few good days of headlines. But they will vanish with the breeze. And the facts, and figures, will continue to speak for themselves.

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Paul B

October 15th, 2008 6:41pm

The fact & figures will indeed stand there and speak for themselves. The image in my minds eyes is of Britain becoming the equivalent of a deserted US Western ghost town, with Browns words and deeds blowing around like tumbledown weed, with an one eyed oldtimer rocking in his chair on the boardwalk, staring at the horizon, repeating, "we will do anything, global problem, born in the USA, no boom & bust"

With the parting shot, panning away, of an ambulance & crew coming to take him away. "Is that another bank going bust my dears" the oldtimer weakly says through thin & cracked lips as they load him onto the gurney. The End, Filmed in Panavision and sponsored by KJ Routling.