Monday, November 17, 2008

Boris Exposes Brown's Currency Shambles

Boris has a stormer of a column in the Telegraph, laying into Gordon Brown's economic record and defending the Conservatives' duty to expose it. Here are some choice extracts...

Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown have peddled some pretty good bilge in their time, but I don’t think I have ever seen anything so bare-faced and intellectually putrid as their attempt to blame the Tories for the fall in the pound ... And what has intensified my rage is the government’s unbelievable suggestion that this is all something to do with George Osborne and his decision to point out what is happening. Ooh, say the Labour MPs, he’s being disloyal! He’s broken the “convention”, they hiss. The Shadow Chancellor has been “unpatriotic”, say the henchpersons of Gordon Brown – and how? He has simply had the guts to point out that past Labour governments have collapsed in sterling crises, and we must all do our best to stop it happening again. How can there possibly be a “convention” that stops Shadow Chancellors from pointing out the baleful effects upon sterling of an irresponsible fiscal policy? Surely that is the very definition of his job. This is insanity, and the Labour attempt to accuse Osborne of “talking down” the pound is the most ludicrous and desperate attempt to evade the blame since – well, since 1992, when the Tories tried to blame the Bundesbank’s Herren Schlesinger and Tietmeyer for the fall of the pound on Black Wednesday.

If Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are right, and our economic difficulties are identical to those of developed countries the world over, then why the hell is it our currency that is taking such a pasting? Why is the pound at a 12 year low against a basket of other OECD currencies? Who is to blame for the cost of my vin chaud? I tell you who: it’s you, Gordon. You did it, by running the largest budget deficit in the world, now hanging round all our necks at more than £100 billion. You wasted all that money in the good times, water-cannoning our dosh with so little thought or restraint that only Hungary, Pakistan and Egypt are suffering from comparable indebtedness, and Hungary and Pakistan are already in the hands of the IMF. You weakened the pound, Gordon, because you expanded the public sector without reforming it. You weakened the pound because you bloated the state pay-roll, and then you added the Private Finance Initiative and the nationalisation of the Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock, and all the time you somehow believed your own lunatic propaganda that you had personally defied the laws of economic gravity. You really thought you had created a new paradigm in which you, and only you, had beaten the economic cycle and gone “beyond boom and bust”, and that you were therefore free to take whatever fiscal risks you wanted, and the markets looked at the whole thing, sucked their teeth and said, baloney. They saw a man simply adding to his country’s obligations, while doing little or nothing to make the countervailing savings in expenditure. Why are we still spending hundreds of millions on a new register of every child in the country? Why are we squandering billions on ID cards? Why does the government still spend £800 m on advertising public sector appointments – very often in the Guardian – when they could be conveniently displayed online? Of all the government’s pretences, perhaps the most sickening and self-serving is that none of this matters, that there is no use crying over spilt milk, and that the most patriotic thing we can do is keep silent while Gordon the great helmsman gets on with saving the country and the world. That, again, is phooey...

The risk now is that Gordon Brown seems to be proposing not just to devalue, but to launch a great unfunded borrowing splurge that could end up weakening the economy further. We all want tax cuts. Of course we do. We need to stimulate consumption and confidence as quickly as possible. The danger is that Gordon may be tempted to do this in such a way as to make matters worse. George Osborne is paid to warn of such risks, and he is absolutely right to do so.
Well that told 'em. We need a bit more of this from the Shadow Cabinet. If they allow Brown to set the terms of the debate, the debate will be over before they know it. Passion. Anger. Attack. That's what we need more of.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

So its friends of David Davis who are trying to do Boy George down!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article5175735.ece

So thats you in the frame Iain.

Alan Douglas said...

At last. But from the wrong source, sadly.

Also, Osborne's intervention seems indeed to have talked the pound UP ! At least the world has some hope of an end to the UK's financial madness, even if only after the election !

Alan Douglas

Anonymous said...

Wham, bam, thank you Boris!

Anonymous said...

Boris forgot to include the £9 billion and rising for London 2012.

Anonymous said...

Boris Johnson exposes the economic madness that drives Brown and his sycophantic fellow travellers,with devasting accuracy.
The attacks on Osborne attempt to divert attention and secure the headlines.The truth is difficult to handle for a Government desperately seeking to use the "global situation" to hide its failure at home.
Profligacy got us into this mess and the use of the word stimulus can not be an excuse to buy votes through unfunded Tax cuts and more irresponsible borrowing.

Anonymous said...

Pure dead brilliant! So how come the Leader of the Opposition isn't saying this?

Anonymous said...

At last - some decent support for Mr Osborne. Cheers BJ.

Anonymous said...

Maybe this is why people see Boris as a Tory leader Iain he attacks Labour - hence the word opposition.

Theyhave got away with murder since they were elected;

wars, terrorism, rising crime,record deficits,lost records, collapsing currency, I could go on but why dont the Tories PHUCK Labour

Persistent
Hussling
of the Undemocratic
Crooks
and Killers

Catosays said...

Powerful stuff from Boris there and about bloody time that someone stood up to the Gorgon and told the truth.

AloneMan said...

Agree wholeheartedly that the Tories need to go on the attack over the pound.
There was an interesting piece on Political Betting yesterday, saying that bringing back Mandelson and Campbell might have been one of Brown's smartest moves, because they're helping him to win the spin war. Certainly it's amazing that the pound can fall in value by a quarter over the space of a few months and hardly anyone in the media bats an eyelid.
Labour are winning the battle for the media narrative, and the value of the pound gives the Conservatives the chance to wrestle it back. That's probably why Labour got so prickly; Osborne hit a nerve.

Anonymous said...

Why does George Osborne get villified for mentioning that excessive borrowing might cause a run on the pound. Yet Gordon Brown can stand up in Parliament and suggest that we are entering a period of DEFLATION.

In terms of talking down an economy that is the worst thing you can say. No one will spend anything if they think prices will be lower in a few months time. It's a recipe for a Japanese style ten year economic slump.

strapworld said...

Iain,

You make the valid point that the Shadow Cabinet should be fighting the fight, in effect.

Look at them. Please tell me just who in Cameron's lacklustre team has got the real guts to stand up and fight. Most of them need a banger up their rear ends!

He has not re-instated David Davis.
He has ignored John Redwood (who was magnificent on Any Questions),
Malcolm Raffkind, who would be in any team of mine is ignored, the list of backbenchers who would and could make such a difference is long. Then, of course the great Ken Clarke, who apart from the EU, is solid and feared by Brown.

Then I think of Oliver Letwin, who would have been at home as a friendly professor! Mr Maude who has not inherited his father's fighting instincts,

Apart from William Hague, Dr Lliam Fox and Chris Grayling (who was hopeless last week) who do have both the ability and will to fight, Please name me the real political fighters close to Cameron?

I have accepted that Osborne did well on Marr's programme, but if he cannot kick the boring, robotic Darling into the long grass- there is no hope!

Then your leader Cameron. Does he inspire? Can he fight? He certainly let Brown off the hook when he had him against the ropes! When he should have finished him off.

But, I will, from today, tow your party line. I will only criticise Brown and his incompetents, In the hope that Cameron will get people around him to take on the war cabinet created by Brown. He HAS to move away from his Toffs and Select band. Widen it Mr Cameron, become more inclusive.

The Country needs YOU to wake up!

Cameron needs people as cute and street wise as Whelan, Draper and Campbell. I have suggested Littlejohn,Gaunt,Ferrarri..there are good people out there who would do a stirling job in helping Cameron defeat this EVIL called Brown.

He needs a Brown Rebuttal Unit.
The Real Unexpergated Truth Hotline! (TRUTH).

Come on Cameron GET YOUR GLOVES OFF.

Anonymous said...

The only question I have about George is, simply, why has he left it so long to come out with so much force? At last a direct hit on Boredom McBroon's chin!

More, George, more.

Blackacre said...

I just do not thing Osborne can do that sort of attack - he would just come across as smug and would turn people off. He is not the right person for this job at the moment, although I fully appreciate that Cameron will stick by him (which is in its way admirable loyalty). Hague would be so much better at getting under the skin of the government presently.

moorlandhunter said...

I hate the way Brown and his crew have hit upon the phrase, 'It's the right thing to do,' as if they believe say it enough then people will believe it
Listening to the Labour buffoons on TV and radio I have lost count of the number of times they use it. Each time one of Brown’s fools pops up, it is used. Ed Balls said it five times in less than a minute this morning when he popped up on TV.
Maybe it has come as an edict from the Brown central control?

Anonymous said...

Powerful stuff, but sadly preceded by the words 'Boris' and 'Telegraph'.

As Dennis Potter once said, that's a bit like putting the word 'processed' in front of 'cheese'.

Tim Carpenter said...

Boris is spot on, Iain.

Gordon needs to be named and shamed at every turn. He is an utter charlatan. He thinks he is making "a new settlement" and "world order", i.e. fiscal monopoly.

Anonymous said...

Question.

If Brown is supposedly ‘leading’ the world on stimulating the economy how come all these countries are well ahead of him already?

* 7th February 2007 - US Congress overwhelmingly passed an economic stimulus with $100 billion for personal taxation rebates, and close to $50 billion in business tax cuts.

* 18th April 2008 - Spain’s newly re-elected government announced an 18 billion euro plan to revive the economy. The plan includes cash injections of 10 billion euros (15.8 billion dollars) this year and around 8.0 billion euros in 2009.

* 28th October 2008 - French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveils measures to protect jobs by funding an additional 100,000 subsidised work contracts in next year’s budget and extending the use of subsidised training programmes.

* 31st October 2008 - Japan unveils a $275 billion package which includes $20 billion worth of benefits to Japanese households, to stimulate spending and tax breaks for home-owners with mortgages.

* 2nd November 2008 - South Korea unveils an economic stimulus package worth at least 14 trillion won ($10.98 billion) to help assure a soft landing in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The South Korean Finance Ministry said in a it would expand fiscal spending by 11 trillion won in 2009

* 5th November 2008 - German cabinet approves a 50 billion euros stimulus package for 2009 and 2010 which includes cheap loans, tax breaks and infrastructure projects.

* 10th November 2008 - China unveils an economic package estimated at £375 billion over the next two years in an effort to inject confidence into their markets.

Chris Paul said...

Tish tosh and piffle!

Chris Paul said...

PS GOO didn't talk the pound up. He simply talked some tosh at the wrong time in the cycle. Miserable negative opportunist treasonous so and so.

Anonymous said...

I quite liked also the skiing bit. As a Euro denominated Brit, I could scarcely believe the rabid Euro-scum MEP who dared to tell Spanish home owners that their houses aren't worth any fewer Euros today, "unless they want to sell them". "The Euro in your pocket", eh?