Brown's flawed war plan

strapworld

Mr Forsyth. I agree with you regarding William Hague.

He just shows how stupid intelligent people are! Plenty of brains but absolutely no common sense. I cannot accept that his colleagues within the Tory top brass did not know what he was about to do...didn't they say 'Hold your horses Bill...think about it!?

People are very very distrustful of politicians and economists right now and to join the bank (that is included in the banks who will tap into tax payers money!)on such a jolly will strike many as hypocritical in the extreme.

An abject apology will not do, I am afraid. He has to be sacked. I take absolutely no pleasure in saying that but the Conservative Party must show a lead. Cameron must remove him from the top table and replace him with Ken Clark moving boy george to the foreign office brief.

oldtimer

This is a good analogy.

The financial crisis affords Mr Brown the chance to deploy the classic Labour playbook when faced with awkward questions.
1 He declines to answer questions about his own responsibilities for the growth of debt and destruction of the savings culture;
2 he smears his opponents, either directly or through proxies;
3 he deploys smoke and mirrors to confuse and obfuscate; and
4 he changes the issue to change the narrative - tho in this instance the change was forced on him.

Yet from the outside looking into the Westminster bubble it seems very different.

For fifty five years I was content to have one bank account with the same bank. Now I have three. The responsibility for this rests in part with Fred "the shred" Goodwin, CEO of RBS for his megalomaniacal acquisition of ABNAmro. The other part rests with Mr Brown for the failure of the banking supervisory arrangements he brought in to replace a tried and tested system. If it is "no time for a novice", as he said, why do we have at the head of the FSA a man who has been there for all of two weeks? We must count ourselves fortunate that Mervyn King survived the reported attempts by Brown and co not to renew his contract earlier this year.

I take issue with Charles Moore on one point. I do not think that the use of anti-terrorism laws to seize Icelandic assets was a proper application of the rule of law. There are laws, both British and international, to deal with corporate bankruptcy and insolvency. Where does this action leave the status of the UK as a place to do business? Must executives now expect to be banged up in prison for 28 days without charge as well? The government has crossed a legal Rubicon. It must be pushed back. Otherwise the impression that we are sinking into the status of a police state will be well and truly confirmed.

Jules

If Brown can recover enough ground, he'll call an election before the recession is fully in effect.

Cameron needs to go in hard, and state that, although he will support immediate measures to limit the crisis, he will call Brown to account for the causes: debt. At the moment, there's too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

Michael

Anyone with an ounce of cerebral activity will realise that a kneejerk reaction is not connected to thought process.
When all is falling around you, at least there are some that are keeping their nerve and getting on with what needs to be done.
William Hague was accompanying his wife in her work as a Barclays advisor, and as a candidate for inclusion in Government, he needs to network effectively. To have him exclude himself from the conference to satisfy the brainless, would have been the wrong thing for him to do, not to mention, as I understand it, he paid his own fare.
Why don't we suggest quite reasonably that all these expensive and dirty junkets to Iceland and America and Europe that our leaders are indulging in could quite possibly and reasonably be replaced by a video conference by internet at minimal expense. At a time when it seems we are going broke with debt, perhaps our leaders should be leading by example.

mitch

How can it be that the USA removes North Korea from a list of terrorist states and Gordon uses anti terror laws against Iceland?.
everyone I have spoken to at work blame Brown and this government for the mess and a lot of them are "natural" labour voters.

Fergus Pickering

Brown will not call an election because he cannot possibly win it. Have some common sense for Heaven's sake. And as for sacking Hague, are you mad? he best thog for the Tories todo just now is nothing because there is nothing for them to do. What a panicky lot you are.

TGF UKIP

Political leaders in trouble have long looked upon "war" as a means of diverting attention from their deficiencies and culpabilities.

In the interest of national unity Dave is, therefore, going to be required by Gordon to desist from all criticism in the name of "national unity at this time of economic war."

Not that Dave was going to be able to say too much anyway as the principal source of the government's problem is a surfeit of debt incurred through incontinent government spending. Spending wholeheartedly applauded by Dave himself.

Now, I'll be amazed if Alistair Darling doesn't shoot the fox, which should have been the Tories' but never was, and cut spending and taxes via the Pre-Budget Statement.

William Hague is, and has long been, semi detached at best.

Short the UK

The points that worry me are that the guys who called this meltdown - Das & Roubini - expect it to be a 'severe recession' (code for depression) that will last years. L shaped rather than V or U. I wanted a V and then I hoped for a U, now I'm bricking that we'll have an L. I really worry for Britain. If America, the EU and Japan are the big blue chips what is Britain? I think we are an aspiring mid-cap rapidly heading toward being a small-cap. Poor Iceland a micro-cap has gone bust. Small Caps are very vulnerable and require a dynamic product to make them grow. For the past 20 years we had a great product that we sold to the world = Financialisation. I think the Great Meltdown of 2008 has now put that business stream into severe reversal. It has gone ex-growth. Our current account deficit must be high and is probably going higher. Who is going to finance blighty when it is obvious that we are a declining share/company/equity. Our share price is our currency. Our hard assets are deflating. We have a very stretched balance sheet. "Hello IMF -can you hear me, my name is Gordon Brown and I need a short term loan to pay my creditors. What, you want preference shares at 10%. I know I maxed out the UK credit card but look we had an amazing, incredible party - just look at our debt imploding Premier League. We've seen Henry, Zola and Shevchenko."

You have Jim Rogers saying don't touch the Dollar and go Swissie and Yen.

The Euro could fracture.

Japan is worried about another depression.

If we have a deflationary slump then the Gold price will fall.

There are very few places to preserve capital - welcome to L.

Paul B

I agree with Jules above, I wouldn`t put it past him (Brown) to call a snap election, even prior to Christmas. This would be dependant on the stock markets stablising and the Libor rate coming down.

He will claim all the credit for his masterplan, claim credit for the oil price reduction, maybe bung a hundrend quid or so in the form of a winter heating allowance to some sections of the society and if the polls show him recovering- he may well be tempted to go for it.

I also agree with Jules assessment of what DC should do next, he needs to let the country known he is holding his tongue for the nations good, but that he has massive complaints than when the time is right he will give forcible air to.

Keith

Even if Hague paid his own way (or the taxpayer did) it was an act of gross stupidity and anyone with an ounce of brain could see the outcome. For that alone he should go. I've never been a fan of Clarke but he, I think, could take Brown on at his own game and win.

mitch

People in the real economy are simply gobsmacked that they now have to pay the Government money in tax, so that it can then be given to the banks, who will then lend it back to them with interest, so that they can buy the stuff that will keep China's economy growing, so that it can underwrite the US government, so that .

How can this be good unless you don't live in the UK?

LiberalHammer

These are worrying times as both incumbent Labour ministers and the Opposition 1 and 2 do not appear to be up to the job. Brown is culpable for the poor regulatory framework and the shoddy state of the public purse. However the thought of George Osborne as Chancellor is equally frightening. The CP really has missed a trick in not having Ken Clarke - who was impressive on QT this week - on the front bench. It seems that only he and Vince Cable have any idea what to do.

Susan Hill

Rubbish. Hague has single-handedly blown the Conservative`s chances of looking responsible, looking as if they have any idea how life is and is going to be for ordi nary people, by this one appearance at the Barclay`s obscenely expensive jolly. How could he have misjudged the zeitgeist so badly ? He is the ONE Tory who is not perceived as a rich Old Etonia toff by the man in the street, but is thought to be a down-to-earth Yorkshireman - the accent and the baldness do help here, and he has made a more stupid mistake than he ever did when he went to the Notting Hill carnival in a baseball cap. And please don`t give me that 'it was a weekend of hard work' line.. they could have had one of those at a corporate hotel in Luton.
I don`t think he should be sacked because he is still one of their best hopes and will make an excellent foreign secretary. But Cameron should not only take away his pocket money and gate him for a few months, he should be seen to be doing so. I bet Brown couldn`t contain his glee when he saw that photographs of the Hagues in Italy.

strapwold

As one with no thought process,nor keeping my nerve! I am pleased that Micheal agrees with me that Haig should not have attended, be it at his own expense and just accompanying his wife. His last sentence proves my point exactly and I still maintain that Haig showed no common sense whatsoever and should be sacked!

Ann S

I'm told Brown has received a boost by the BBC and others. I have yet to be convinced. His behaviour of apparently being happy now we're up the financial creek has down like a lead balloon.
I await the next set of pols with interest. I doubt there will be much of a dent in the Tory lead.

Ken

oldtimer@ 11:32am:
Couldn't agree more on the evilness of McRuined-us-all using a crassly drafted Terrorism Act against Iceland. But this is no isolated incident. It would be useful to review all the anti-democratic measures legislated by marxist Nulabour since 1977, the pattern and the extent of these is dangerous and sits uncomfortably in a nation once proud to defend liberty and freedom. HM Opposition may care to start the ball rolling but then probably not, their inertia in the current crisis is selfdefeating in extremis.

biggestaspidistra

"William Hague was accompanying his wife in her work as a Barclays advisor, and as a candidate for inclusion in Government, he needs to network effectively."

He's toast. Who said 'if he weren't so clever he'd be the stupidest man I know'?

JohnAnt

Poor Hague. Excellent debater, good speaker, sound views; But utterly misled in so many of his decisions as leader, and seems to have lost interest in politics since then. If we want somone who writes about 18c politicos, makes amusing after-dinner speeches and plays the piano beautifully, we can phone Rentapresenta.
It was an act of suicide to go to Como on Friday. Either he's desperate to be sacked, or his judgement is unacceptably poor.

Travis Bickle

If Neville Chamberlain had adopted Brown's demeanour this week he have got off the plane clutching his piece of paper and pronounced;

"War?, Well I did mention it once but I think I got away with it"