Gordon Brown should beware the shade of Greenspan

The Prime Minister has successfully massaged the public’s perception of his role in
the current crisis. But he may not get away with it forever.

George Osborne splits his job as shadow chancellor between various party duties (in his de facto role as Mr Cameron’s deputy) and is not giving the brief his full attention. This often shows, as it did recently on Channel Four news when he was unable to name any of the 19 advanced economies growing faster than Britain’s expected 1.6 per cent this year. He sub-contracts much of his work out to Philip Hammond, shadow economic secretary to the Treasury, who has a worrying habit of muddling his numbers.

So Mr Greenspan was unlucky to have an army of numerate, articulate detractors willing to help America form a negative view of him. Books making this case (such as the brilliant Greenspan’s Bubbles by William Fleckenstein) are piled high in bookshops. But Mr Brown has none of these tormentors. While the Conservatives are personally contemptuous of him, they remain intellectually in awe of him; committed to his spending plans, his language, his metrics and overall position on tax and spend.

It is too late for Britain to avoid soaring repossessions, rising unemployment and pernicious inflation. Yet unlike Mr Greenspan, Mr Brown may yet get away with posing as the answer to these problems. That is why no sane Conservative will yet bet against him winning the next election, which is why even David Cameron does not say in private that he expects to win. Conservatives may find it infuriating, cruel and unfair. But Mr Brown may still emerge from all this with a fraction of the blame he deserves. l