May I heartily recommend Fraser Nelson's
COLUMN in this week's Spectator? It is a masterly analysis of Gordon Brown's smoke and mirrors approach to the public finances, but warns David Cameron that he should not count on the Brown bubble bursting. It's a great read.
iain, Doesn't Mr Nelson make the observation that Mr Cameron has been too quiet?
ReplyDeleteThanks, that is an excellent read. If only Mr Nelson were shadow Chancellor.
ReplyDeleteI am absolutely fuming with the Tory leadership. Sky are reporting that Cameron attacked Brown this morning, it more like hitting him with a Monty Python comfy cushion. If that was an attack then Brown has nothing to worry about.
We should back Boris platform for more deregulation of the City
ReplyDeleteWhats wrong with the Bonus system its made UK PLC rich
Boris in cameron out...he simply cannot mix it with the big boys
I agree Iain, a very good article. I can well remember the warnings given to Brown by the IMF and the way he rudely told them that he knew better.
ReplyDeleteIt's points like this that the Tories should be very strongly pointing out, but who is going to do it?
A year ago, I decided to stop criticising Dave Cameron and lo and behold, he started to improve. I wonder now however, if the improvement was purely due to Brown getting worse! We do seem to have people at the top of the party who don't come across as very strong and we seriously need to do some serious tweaking with the hierarchy, otherwise we'll lose the plot.
That is an excellent article. He makes some good points, what a shame that Cameron & Co. can't seem to get the same points across.
ReplyDeleteI have said more than once in the last few weeks that Cameron needs some big beasts to help him. If it's left to him and Boy Gearge the Tories are sunk.
Any chance of employing Fraser Nelson to write George Osborne's speeches and brief him before he goes on the TV and Radio?
ReplyDeleteThe Spectator proprietors will be very pleased with it. In fact it could be reproduced as an editorial in the new proBrown Daily Telegraph.
ReplyDeleteExcellent article by Mr Nelson. A better writer than all of us that have been saying the same thing for the last 11 years. Brown won't listen tho' and I have decreasing faith in the Tories getting propeorly after him, Brown that is.
ReplyDeleteI thought Fraser's blog today was most revealing:
ReplyDelete"I’ve read and re-read Cameron’s speech on the economy, hoping that I had somehow missed the radical message to answer Gordon Brown. I have given up.
Britain is facing a tsunami of unemployment, two years of recession if we’re lucky and what do the Tories have to say? They’ll set up a new quango, and try to tinker with council tax"
"His dreadful “social responsibility” phrase is making a comeback in the form of “economic responsibility” and remains just as vacuous as a concept"
"Much of the detail appears worryingly wrong-headed"
“not just nonsense, but nonsense on stilts.”
"I note Enoch Powell’s dictum that the electorate like a tune they can whistle. Brown understands this. Cameron today gave us lots of notes, but it sounded like two cats fighting on a piano keyboard. This won’t do. Cameron needs a tune - and fast"
Bursting Dave's bubble?
Gordon Brown IS King Canute.
ReplyDeleteCameron is Chamberlain (and that does a huge disservice to Nev)
The Euro will be torn asunder.
Things we have known will not be known.
Who is our Richard Coeur de Lion?
When are the Tories going to start making some obvious points about this crisis?
ReplyDelete- This crisis was not caused by Margaret Thatcher, it was caused by the person who was chancellor while the property bubble was inflating. (If he thought any of Thatcher's policies risked creating a bubble, he had plenty of time to change them.)
- This crisis was not caused by America. America had a banking crisis, and so did we, because American banks have a load of dud loans and so do ours. Meanwhile, Spain does not have a banking crisis, because they handled bank supervision properly.
- People like John Redwood warned for years about the dangers of an inflation target which excluded housing costs. It's not rocket science: housing costs are a cost, so if they go up, you have inflation. But instead Brown asked the MPC to target an artificial measure of inflation, which excluded asset prices. The result was asset price inflation, followed by a nasty bust.
Please don't let Brown get away with this. It would be really galling if he created an economic crisis, and then won the next election because he managed to fix it.