The Brownian Approach to Politics

Gordon Brown has in recent weeks demonstrated a four-step approach to politics:

Step one: Realise what you’ve done wrong (but don’t admit it)
Step two: Announce in the most brazen terms that the worst thing you could possibly do is what you’ve already done wrong
Step three: Compound the problem by acting as though you haven’t done anything wrong, ever.
Step four: Pray the public are as stupid as you presume them to be.

Allow me to prove my thesis by referring to GB’s speech this morning to the CBI:

Exhibit A

Step one: Realise you’ve racked up levels of debt not seen in the UK since the 1940s, all to finance a vast expansion of the state.

Step two: Announce that:“If we have learnt anything in these last tumultuous and unprecedented months, it is that this is not the time to become prisoners of the old dogmas of the past”

Step three: Borrow even more to spend on government projects and temporary tax cuts, all to be paid for at a later date by tax rises, especially for high earners (does this remind anyone of an old dogma?)

Step four: Pray the public are as stupid as you presume them to be.

Exhibit B

Step one: Realise that the last ten years of economic mis-management has left the country’s coffers woefully under-prepared for a downturn and that, far from leading the globe, Britain has been behind the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia and Lord knows who else in proposing significant measures to tackle the economic downturn.

Step two: State that: “Doing too little too late would mean more damage, more deterioration – the loss of vital business – a weaker economy, lower growth…”

Step three: Months after other countries have offered significant tax cuts and fiscal stimuli, introduce a temporary 2.5% reduction in VAT that is likely to cost £12bn but represents a tenth of what desperate retailers are already lopping off their prices to no avail.

Step four: Pray the public are as stupid as BBC political correspondants.

Exhibit C

Step one: Realise that Government has wasted billions on pet projects, quangos, failed IT systems, myriad consultants and Blackberry training.

Step two: Proclaim that “We must ensure we get the greatest value we can for every pound we spend”

Step three: Announce significant increases in Government spending and, well, you know what follows.

Step four: Pray…


The mainstream media has seemingly allowed Brown to get away with steps one to three, we must ensure he is not allowed to get away with step four.

Brown: "we are better prepared than other countries". IMF: "No you're not".

At Wednesday's Guy Fawkes installment of PMQs, David Cameron attacked Gordon Brown with the aid of an EU Commission report forecasting the recession in the UK to be the deepest of any other major EU economy. Unwilling to answer the charge that we are worse prepared than other leading economies, the PM instead chose to mock Cameron for quoting from an EU report:

"That was the only time I have ever heard the right hon. Gentleman quoting the European Commission..... The right hon. Gentleman usually likes to quote the International Monetary Fund, rather than the European Union."

I suspect this may come back to haunt the Prime Minister, for yesterday the IMF predicted that the UK will be the worst hit of the world’s leading rich economies. Not that you'd know from the BBC website; "Credit crunch hits horse owners" and "Disney hit by economic slowdown" are given more prominence than the IMF.

Tortellini Socialist

Hazel Blears has recently completed the Daily Politico questionnaire over at Total Politics, with one answer striking this blogger as particularly revealing:

Q: What’s your favourite dish?
A: I like food where someone has gone to some effort. I like it messed with! I had some lovely handmade tortellini the other day. Someone else was paying.

Typical socialist. Always looking for someone else to foot the bill.

Could Brown be more wrong?

"Britain remains well-placed to withstand this uncertainty in the global economy" - Gordon Brown, January 2008

"Britain is well placed to weather the first financial crisis of the new global age" - Gordon Brown, September 2008

Which is why the pound is tanking....

"Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past." - Gordon Brown, November 1999

"And we will never return to the old boom and bust." - Gordon Brown, 2007

Which is why GDP growth is falling off a cliff...

"I will not allow house prices to get out of control" - Gordon Brown, March 1997

Which is why house prices need to correct by over 40% to return the house price / income ratio to the long-term average, and why Britain is in worse shape than the US.

Veep Debate

CNN's poll of 611 Americans conducted during last night's VP debate came to the following conclusions:

• Only 26 percent of those surveyed said that Palin was more intelligent in the debate compared to the 57 percent who chose Biden
• Overall, 51 percent of the debate watchers said that Biden did the best job in the debate, while 36 percent gave the nod to Palin.
• However, the Alaska governor overcame expectations as 84 percent of the debate watchers said she did better than expected

So lets get this straight; Biden is deemed more intelligent by a 31 percentage point margin and is judged to have won the debate by a 15 point gap. Yet, Palin exceeded the expectations of 84% of those polled - They clearly had a staggeringly low opinion of her before she began.

Just because she didn't fall flat on her face doesn't mean she won the debate, nor does it make her any more credible. In the event of McCain being unable to fulfill his duties, for whatever reason, can you really imagine this woman as President?

The Economy Plummets, Labour Triangulates

For a neat summation of why New Labour has been such an unmitigated disaster for this country, read Spencer Livermore’s article in today’s Guardian. The man who was Brown’s senior strategy advisor from 1997 to 2008 perfectly encapsulates the Government’s primarily failing; they are, and always have been, focused on gaining and retaining power ahead of driving our country forward.

Livermore’s panacea for the Government’s ills is to “make the case that the Conservatives remain unreformed, that they remain a threat to Britain's families, their future prosperity and their public services.” One would have thought that Downing Street should be focusing on helping homeowners, fighting the surge in serious crime, curbing inflation and addressing the widening poverty gap. But apparently all they need do is “ensure that the issue at the next election is whether the Tories have changed enough to be trusted.”

Unfortunately for Labour, and Mr. Livermore, it is the Government that is perceived to be the threat, and with good reason. They have wasted billions on pet projects, quangos and unreformed public services, funded by a raid on our pensions and pockets, and a level of debt we shall be servicing long after this Government has stopped twitching. Their state-first approach has failed miserably, and no amount of spinning or triangulation can save them.

Mr 1%

Excuse my lack of optimism in the state of the UK residential property market, but who actually thinks that Gordon Brown's much trailed Stamp Duty “holiday” is going to make the slightest bit of difference?

The message they want us to swallow is that we should all rush out in the next 12 months and buy a house valued at between £125k and £175k, because we will then be the lucky beneficiaries of a 1% discount. Of course, the fact that we could all instead do nothing and pick up a likely 10% discount in a year’s time seems to have passed the Government by. Waiving a 1% tax will not have even the remotest impact on transaction levels when the mortgage market is so prohibitive, and confidence in the economy so low.

One might be tempted to suggest that the Government knows something we don’t, and believes that GDP growth is due to pick up, inflation to fall, and the credit markets to flow once again. But then Darling rather let the cat out of the bag on that one over the weekend…