When it comes to government announcements, especially with this government, it's best to look at the small print. Unfortunately, with yesterday's mortgage announcement, there is not only no small print, there is no large print either. Why? Because it was rushed out so as to dominate yesterday's news agenda and push the Damian Green story down the news rankings. And in many ways it did that. What a way to run a government.
Of course, now it's out there, the whole thing is beginning to unravel. Margaret Beckett is flailing around, clearly unready to answer the questions which are fairly predictable. The banks are making clear they are pretty hacked off at being bounced by Gordon Brown - again.
None of this is to say that in principle, such a scheme might not be a good idea. But the worst thing you can do is announce something which hasn't been thought through properly, is relatively uncosted, does not have the full backing of the banks and looks like a dog's breakfast.
Dizzy is rather more scathing.
17 comments:
Bujt are you surprised? This is after all a bloke with a long reputation for bare faced lies, or "Brownies" as Fraser Nelson is pleased to designate them.
The Penguin
Paxman was good on this last night, suggesting the thing had been 'lashed together at the last minute to get the headlines.'
I think the agenda of this govt is such that the support of the banks is not that significant to the PM. That may appear surprising but the whole thrust of govt policy in response to the current crisis to date has been to defy the market and increase state control. As each of its policies fails to achieve what the govt intended, it will increase state control even further. Unless the govt realises the futility of this approach more and more private decisions - including those of the banks - will be subject to legislation and excecutive powers further worsening our economic prospects.
In effect this is the old "price control v market" argument which is again rearing its head after a lapse of 30-odd years. That said the govt is not engaging in the debate. Instead it is using cheap jibes - e.g., Tories = do nothing party - to support its approach and rational debate is being increasingly sidelined. By all means do sthg but let it be sthg that is constructive which doesn't ignore basic economic laws and will actually help us get out of this mess rather than leave us wallowing in recession for however many years.
This is 'back of a fag packet' economics. What right has the Government got to take MY money and use it to underwrite someone elses mortgage? This is why I've been paying mortgage protection for the last 10 years. Why should I be responsible for other people who have overstretched themselves, who haven't been prudent? Should I just cancel my insurance now?
Make no bones about Iain, this political grandstanding on a truly malignant scale, because by setting in place a 2 year term Brown has effectively lumbered the next Government with a massive problem. I am actually starting to think the Conservatives might be better off throwing the next election and let Brown wallow in the s**t he is creating. Of course, the problem then is if Labour are allowed to win I seriously doubt there will be much of a country left to run.
The 'do nothing leader of a do nothing party'
"A minister rapidly promoted by Gordon Brown is a former Treasury civil servant who was once prime suspect in a leak inquiry.
Government whip Helen Goodman wrote a secret report that embarrassed the former Conservative government when it fell into the hands of Gordon Brown, then shadow chancellor.
The curious leak of the report - Ms Goodman says she was cleared by her formerbosses - is being dragged up by Whitehall officials because it shows how dramatically the Prime Minister's attitude to leaks has changed.
Mr Brown had no hesitation in publishing the leaked report on the eve of a major economic debate in the Commons in the summer of 1996. It embarrassed the then-chancellor, Kenneth Clarke.
The report forecast, among other things, the privatisation of pensions by and welfare benefits.
When not working at the Treasury under her maiden name of Helen Goodman, the report's author was an ambitious Labour politician using her married name of Helen Seaford.
Oxford-educated Ms Goodman left the Treasury in 1997 and worked for charities until gaining the safe Labour seat of Bishop Auckland in 2005. She was promoted to deputy Commons leader under Harriet Harman when Mr Brown became leader in 2007. This autumn she moved to the whips office."
Standard Article.
The Penguin
Perhaps the govt can also pick up credit card bills of people who overspent at Christmas. This govt gets more ridiculous by the day.
p.s. word verif: nonsubs
For Brown to announce a bank package that the banks haven't even signed up to yet is outrageous and an appalling example of how Brown is using the current crisis to spin his way out of electoral trouble.
Of course it was never signed. Forget about 90% of the market signing up to such a deal. You wouldn't get some of those banks to agree to such a deal in months.
British politicians have an unfortunate habit of announcing deals as agreed before they are signed, which often means that the government has to make concessions before the deal is signed.
This is a whole order of magnitude worse. It seems that in the Mendacious World of Mandelson and Brown, all you have to do is pick up the phone or turn up to a meeting to be deemed to have signed an agreement.
Now watch the banks push back while the government threatens them with nationalisation.
Alex, are you perhaps infringing a rather well-known copyright? Perhaps the Home Office should be informed.
I think that Gordon Brown was quite pleased to make an announcement which took the Tories by complete surprise. The benefit of ridding themselves of the Tory Mole.
JAILHOUSE lAWYER:
The mole who has gone was in the HO wasn't he? How does getting rid of him help the govt with keeping its economic policy secret?
Dizzy quite rightly points out that the morons in the msm are again not checking their facts, which is also exactly what Richard North has been saying all along.
Iain,
Just a niggle at the back of my head. BUT shouldn't the Tories/Lib Dem constitutional experts be getting their books out.
Brown was rising for the LOYAL ADDRESS. Which Her Majesty read out.
IT Did NOT contain this nonsense which Brown spouted out. Is that not an insult to our Queen? Is it proper?
Can anyone enlighten me please?
Well there was bound to be a back of a fag packet idea to throw the tabloids, they've always done this...
With his talent for spin one would have thought that Brown, rather than play at being PM, should be just the man needed to add to the attack in Englands cricket team for the tour of India.
This was an exercise in securing the folllowing day's headlines. Nada mas nada menos. This is all labour ever does. Spin, spin and spin a little more.
We now live in an economic fantasy world where no-one is responsible for their actions. What an utter farce. What a terrible message to send to younger people.
I was taught to spend no more than I could afford, to put money aside for a rainy day and, if I took on credit, be damn sure that I could repay it.
Brown allowed a spending binge to develop through a total lack of control of the financial services industry. Individuals and companies jumped on the borrowing bandwagon, as did the government using the unlimited credit of the taxpayer.
Now the shit has hit the fan Brown's nanny state rides to the rescue showering money, taxpayer money, in every direction.
I'm sorry for anyone who has difficulty meeting their mortgage repayments but why should people who have lived within their means pay for this measure because pay we will through higher taxes/increased government borrowing funded by the taxpayer.
Brown has practised the politics of heads I win, tails you lose. Whichever way he spins the coin, he wins.
It's time to go Mr Brown. You and your acolytes in Labour have ruined the economy.
Time for an election
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