political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Gordon Brown is Not a Lucky Politician
To be a successful Prime Minister you have to be lucky. Margaret Thatcher was a lucky politician and so is Tony Blair. Gordon Brown is not. How unlucky was it for him to be in India just as the Big Brother racism row broke? How unlucky is it for him that the inflation rate hits its highest level for ten years and government debt has doubled, just as he's about to take over the top job? Well, that could be said to be his own fault, rather than bad luck, but you get my drift.
Was it really bad luck that the big brother stuff kicked off while Gordo was in India? He was on a fairly uninspiring "trade delegation" which became relevant to the massess only because of CBB. Far more attention was paid to his visit as a result - a visit that, allegedly, only saw Gordo take part to divert attention away from rising rates. Truth be told, not a bad week for Gordo.
ReplyDeleteLets hope his run of bad luck continues indefinitely and he keeps putting his foot in it. When he did get attention what did he do...tell everyone he wanted England to win the World Cup, and he's a jock! What a berk.
ReplyDeleteI think to become PM without being elected will be pretty lucky!
ReplyDeleteEspecially as he is nearly universally disliked.
Mmm. 10 years growth, lowest inflation for decades, rising employment, comfortable majority in parliament, united party (at least politically), rubbish and split opposition?
ReplyDeleteYeah, he's really unlucky to be taking over.
Gordo believes in fair shares for all so he should have his fair share of bad luck. But thinking of his babies, poor sod, he has had that already.
ReplyDeleteHe's also unlucky in that football (excect for the women's variety, I think) is a rarity in India.
ReplyDeleteBut as a jock, he probably doesn't understand the rules of cricket and thinks a 'straight bat' refers to Margaret Beckett.
I agree with Steve, plus the inflation is not exclusively the responsibility of the Treasury when you consider that it is the Bank of England that control interest rates
ReplyDeleteInflation is still very low (hence the Tories being committed to the same monetary regime).
ReplyDeleteTeflon-Tony now Velcro-Gordon
ReplyDeleteIt isn't "bad luck" that's caused inflation to get out of hand in the UK. It's Brown's mismanagement of the economy and the complacency of his stooges on the MPC and it's going to get worse.
ReplyDeleteTotal debt in this country is now approaching the horrendous and totally unsustainable level of £2 trillion. (that's £1.3 trillion of consumer debt and £500 billion Government debt, both figures are continuing to rise)
With inflation on the rise, the futures markets have priced in two more interest rate rises by summer and perhaps more beyond that.
Growing business failures and a house price crash will ensue from this and we will be faced with the twin perils of rising inflation and an economy on the slide.
That spells stagflation and it's consequences can be deadly.
Well done Gordon, let's hope you do better as PM. God help us!
I think Gordon was lucky to be in india when the BB row kicked off as he was able to appear on TV and in the press standing up for british values and British decency. He got to act PM for a day and came accross well doing it.
ReplyDeleteIt was also good luck that he was out of the country while those inflation figures came out.
Seigniorage - the revenue accruing from the state monopoly to issue currency - is the delicious word that describes a power of government which Gordon Brown, killjoy that he is, gave away in 1997 to the Bank of England, a power Mervyn King has been exercising vigorously.
ReplyDeletePublic expenditure can be met by raising revenues, (taxes etc.) borrowing from the public, or from the Bank of England, including its seigniorage.
But when revenues are not enough and Mervyn has the last laugh, there remains only borrowing.
In 1997 incoming chancellor Brown was blessed with historically low levels of national debt; these levels are now very high as the result of Gordon Brown's economic, fiscal, and monetary cack-handedness.
Public debt (the accumulation of government spending uncovered by revenue) is further debilitating. Public borrowing crowds out
private investment and household consumption, and public expenditure then creates demand that can raise inflation rather than real incomes
and generate a trade deficit.
This is particularly the case when most public
expenditure goes into income transfers (state jobs and welfare payments) rather than productive investment. Growth in net imports then adds to national external indebtedness.
Growing debt worries lenders, so interest rates are forced upwards to control consumption and reassure world-wide lending institutions.
Essentially Mervyn's restraint in exercising his base rate powers and his seigniorage powers is all that stands between us and a Brown-induced economic crisis.
It's nothing to do with luck.
Fascinating and easy to understand, as always, Hatfield Girl! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteBack from Oz?
He was out of the country because he knew the inflation figures were bad and he did what he always does when times are hard - hide!
ReplyDelete(PS - howard d - where'd you buy those rose tinted specs? I'd love a pair but my specs only show the word as it is, not as I wish it was...)
Of course Brown has got bad luck, for one thing, he has got to follow Blair as PM.
ReplyDeleteI reckon that the reason Gordon didn't eat any thing, on that fateful night in the Granita restaurant, is that he had introduced polonium to the foodstuffs. Gordon's bad luck seems to have started that night, the polonium must have been a dud batch, because it obviously did not work on Blair. Poor Gordon.
Can I sell and move before the house price crash please?
ReplyDelete(Just today, for the first time in a few years, I have seen property near here going at under 100,000. It's started)
Iain,
ReplyDeleteGordon wasn't 'unlucky' to be in India when the inflation figures were announced. Remember he gets the figures before everybody else. He was supposed to be in Scotland but the figures were so bad that he paniced, cancelled his engagements there and got himself a jolly to India, leaving poor Balls to blink his way through the negative interviews, as you observed. No luck involved whatsoever.
Mmmmm. Unlucky to be in the media being statesmanlike about BB, deploring racism and then triumphant as Brits bounce Jade? I'll have some of that 'bad luck' please. Exactly what would have happened to him if he'd stayed for the Act of Union party and other plans? Think he has done rather well from this. Though I'm still not minded to vote for him in any leadership election unless it is to keep John Reid out of the way. But rather than suggesting he was running *from* blighty is it not possible he was running *to* India knowing he might become the centre of a storm that was already brewing and would work out well for him?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it could be said that for this flawed and clunking Bigfoot to have got into high office in the first place he must have been dead lucky.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Mr Broon, you won't have time for more than a few deep breaths in office, because your luck - and nulab's - has run out.
What a nerve for Mr Broon to urge viewers to vote out Jade Goody for her discriminatory comments on Big Bro, when he's been blatently discriminating against those of us in England for years by syphoning off our taxes to buy elitist services for Scots and votes.
You're going the same way Jade went, Mr Broon, but don't think you'll be quietly slipping out the back door.
When Mr Broon and co go the whole country's having a BIG party to celebrate!
This is pretty bizarre even by Iain's standards. I am no Brown fan but the Big Brother thing went well for him - the papers loved it. It is also dicey talking about inflation when it is pretty low and the Conservatives entirely share Brown's view on monetary policy. One of Iain's poorest efforts of recent times.
ReplyDeleteChris p has it right. The only reason he went on those dates, was to avoid the release of the Brownie (the union coin) and the Union Party he ordered.
ReplyDeleteGordon Brown has a habit of being otherwise occupied when something embarassing is about to occur that might involve him. Witness the amount of times he has been absent in the HOC when bad news has been released about New Labour's corrupt activities.