Way back in 2007 when things started to go wrong, the bottom started to fall out of the stock market, the pound began to lose value against the dollar and the euro, Brown refused to even countenance the word “recession”.
Eventually, of course, the inevitable happened, and although everyone else had been talking about it for weeks, Brown eventually stuttered the word for the first time at question time in the Commons. Of course it was nothing to do with him at that point. Oh no sir. It had started in America. Then it had spread to France and Germany, and, as I recall, a list of other countries as long as your arm before daring to show its face on these shores.
The proud boast of the Prime Minister that he had beaten “boom and bust” with his “prudent” policies had turned out not just to be wrong, but to be disastrously and monumentally wrong. In fact just about as wrong as you could get.
While other countries were suffering a light or medium recession (mainly caused by the knock on effect of America’s serious downturn) the UK with its disastrous light touch policies on the massive financial centres in Edinburgh and London, the house price boom (which MPs had been so quick to exploit) and credit card lending on a scale previously unknown, fell deeper and deeper into depression.
With it being impossible to refute, Brown had admitted that policies needed to be put into place to deal with the financial situation, but he dithered as always and many of the policies remained just that. Of course there wasn’t that much to fix in Britain so he decided that he had to “save the world” (which of course involved a shed load of grandstanding with the Presidents of China and the US). He even, at one stage, told us that he had, in fact, done just that. Doesn’t it make you....erm .... proud?
The reality is that it was all in his dreams. His government’s handling of the crisis, in fact, was lamentable and all the more amazing when you consider that he imported so-called City experts into the government (and thus the aristocracy) in order to advise him.
Still he told us that Britain, because of his prudent policies, was better placed than other countries to come out of the recession early and in better fettle than our partners in the EU.
The reality of the situation is, of course, that whilst our continental neighbours have started to come out of their medium depth recessions, “the [British] economy shrank for a record sixth quarter in a row between July and September, new figures showed today. Forecasters had predicted slight growth but their hopes were dashed and the UK remains mired in the longest period of continuous decline since records began in 1955”.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just once in a while you could believe something the Prime Minister says? And wouldn’t it be nice if somewhere in this population of 60 million there was someone who knew something about running an economy for the good of the people, not just a few troughing bankers, MPs and Lords.
Eventually, of course, the inevitable happened, and although everyone else had been talking about it for weeks, Brown eventually stuttered the word for the first time at question time in the Commons. Of course it was nothing to do with him at that point. Oh no sir. It had started in America. Then it had spread to France and Germany, and, as I recall, a list of other countries as long as your arm before daring to show its face on these shores.
The proud boast of the Prime Minister that he had beaten “boom and bust” with his “prudent” policies had turned out not just to be wrong, but to be disastrously and monumentally wrong. In fact just about as wrong as you could get.
While other countries were suffering a light or medium recession (mainly caused by the knock on effect of America’s serious downturn) the UK with its disastrous light touch policies on the massive financial centres in Edinburgh and London, the house price boom (which MPs had been so quick to exploit) and credit card lending on a scale previously unknown, fell deeper and deeper into depression.
With it being impossible to refute, Brown had admitted that policies needed to be put into place to deal with the financial situation, but he dithered as always and many of the policies remained just that. Of course there wasn’t that much to fix in Britain so he decided that he had to “save the world” (which of course involved a shed load of grandstanding with the Presidents of China and the US). He even, at one stage, told us that he had, in fact, done just that. Doesn’t it make you....erm .... proud?
The reality is that it was all in his dreams. His government’s handling of the crisis, in fact, was lamentable and all the more amazing when you consider that he imported so-called City experts into the government (and thus the aristocracy) in order to advise him.
Still he told us that Britain, because of his prudent policies, was better placed than other countries to come out of the recession early and in better fettle than our partners in the EU.
The reality of the situation is, of course, that whilst our continental neighbours have started to come out of their medium depth recessions, “the [British] economy shrank for a record sixth quarter in a row between July and September, new figures showed today. Forecasters had predicted slight growth but their hopes were dashed and the UK remains mired in the longest period of continuous decline since records began in 1955”.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just once in a while you could believe something the Prime Minister says? And wouldn’t it be nice if somewhere in this population of 60 million there was someone who knew something about running an economy for the good of the people, not just a few troughing bankers, MPs and Lords.
