ISSUE 43: 12.11.2008
So who do you believe? Gordo’ or the IMF?
He says we are better placed than most to weather the downturn.
The IMF says we are worse placed.
Gordon Brown has two recurring themes in his reference to the current financial turmoil.
He refers ad nauseam to the fact that this is “a world wide downturn” usually adding that it is all the fault of the Americans with their sub-prime loans.
His other theme is that “Britain is better placed than most other countries to withstand the shock of the downturn”. The implication being that this resilience is as result of his, Gordon Brown’s, brilliance in managing the economy, firstly as Chancellor and more latterly as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.
Well, the downturn would be a great deal easier to handle in Britain if he had not blown so much money on reckless and mis-managed public spending and put so little aside for the inevitable downturn.
That down turn which he never ceased to remind us in the past was banished due to his personal elimination of “Tory Boom and Bust.”
Well we seem instead now to have a period of even more dramatic “Socialist Boom and Bust” but we do not seem to hear anything in the way of him taking responsibility for this sorry state of affairs, whereas we had all became rather weary of his constant boasting that it was he (rather than a previously prudent Tory Chancellor and benign world wide conditions) who was responsible for the comfortable financial situation that prevailed for much of the last decade.
Set that aside for the moment though. What we are looking at here is his mantra that we are better placed in the UK to withstand the buffeting of a recession or a slump than other countries.
Sadly, it would appear that the International Monetary Fund is not so convinced.
In fact, the IMF believe that Britain is worse placed than most other countries to meet the shocks to the financial system that we have experienced and those that we still have awaiting us.
They believe that our economy will shrink at almost twice the rate of the USA at 1.3% as against 0.7%.
So whom do you believe? Do you have faith in the genius who wrecked our pension system single handed, sold off a large part of our gold reserves at knock-down prices (£1.9 Billion when he sold them in 1999. Now would have been worth £5.7 Billion) and still believes, despite all the serious evidence to the contrary, that he can spend his way out of a recession (using our money of course), after already having wasted billions on public services that still don’t function properly.
Or do you believe the independent IMF with their more damning view of his stewardship?
Or shall we consider the view of the European Commission?
They have stated that they believe the recession will affect Britain worse than other leading nations on the Continent. They have some other unwelcome reading to offer to GB too.
According to their economic forecasts, by 2010, Gordon Brown will be presiding over one of Europe’s highest rates of public debt while the nation’s economy shrinks. Only Estonia and Latvia are expected to suffer deeper recessions.
The EC forecasts that unemployment will rise here by 25%, meaning that 7.1% of the population will be jobless. If the doubtful area of those on sickness benefits is studied the real figure will probably be even higher, some believe.
Perhaps most chillingly, the EC forecast a rise in public borrowing from 2.8% to 6.5%.
This figure chimes with the Independent Treasury Economic Model (commonly known as the Item Club) which has predicted a rise in Government borrowing to a record £93 Billion next year. This position is predicted to continue to deteriorate as tax receipts fall and public spending and borrowing increase.
The Item Club group of leading economists warn that British taxpayers will spend the next decade footing this bill.
So there we have it. Boastful Brown on the one hand, still flinging our money away like a drunken gambler and saddling us all with huge debts in the process, while on the other hand we have the more considered views of the IMF and others who take a contrary view of his self declared wisdom.
So whom do you believe?
Wonder if they do assisted passages to New Zealand? They have just had the good sense to chuck out the socialists there.