The real economy will soon be hit by the crisis

mitch

""Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?..."

this is a question not a statement and this is what he said.the answer is no not really and its not his idea either.

TrevorsDen

I cannot believe your remark
"It is fair to say that the Tories have not yet risen to the challenge posed by this crisis"

The Tories but the well being of the country first by not making political points out of the near market melt down.. Neither also did the libdems or SNP for that matter.

Cameron made a pointed speech the other day quite rightly further distancing themselves from Labour.

The economy is in a mess the true scale of which is not yet apparent. Yet all the Spectator can do is perpetuate new labour propaganda.

Lets be clear - despite all Browns pretence at 'solutions' and all the similar statements from his fellow travelling co-national leaders - there really is nothing significant to do.

The ship is sinking with not enough lifeboats to go round. There is NOTHING anyone can do.
To quit the analogy and revert to real life - the money has gone GONE G.O.N.E., gone.
There is no way it can be conjured back up again so no matter what anybody says that means we are all ALL A.L.L., all, going to be poorer, POORER .... need I go on?

Liz Brown

It is unfortunate that as the delusional sub Prime Minister, and architect of our current misfortunes, sinks, he is taking this former great country down with him. No real reason for celebration

Ian C

The Tories have to get to grips with why the re-capitalisation is not enough. They need to be first with a scheme to help genuine private hardup cases that can be put into the mix with BOTH re-capitalisation AND write offs of the toxic debt.

The man to lsiten to is John Thain of Merril Lynch. On Bear Stern's demise he saw what he had to do and sold their debt to those with deep enough pockets to wait for a profit on their investment of 22c in the $ bargain basement purchase of the ML book of mortgage related debt.

The Tories have to come up with the political equivalent. Or Labour will get away with their current smugness. And we will be in for years of stagnation at best, prolonged depression at worst.

It can still be avoided but is looking less and less likely by the hour.

Ganpat Ram

Voting th Tories in to sort out a disaster caused by capitalism having been given too free a ride is crazy.

They created the conditions for this disaster with Thatcherite deregulation of the City.

Labour's mistake as to adopt Thatcherite policies.

Putting the Tories in is like trying to cure a bad dose of pneumonia with the plague.

The Tories will slash spending savagely and hit working class people without mercy.

Augustus

When one delves a bit deeper into the credit crisis one can see that a number of typical Keynesian, i.e. socialist measures have been taken, typically designed for a quick fix. Socialist Barack Obama was immediatetely in favour of a bail out. When McCain stopped his campaign and went to Washington to help deal with the crisis, there were voices accusing him of being against the plan. He came round later, but initially he was sceptical of the bail out, and it was left to his colleagues in Congress to resolve the matter. According to the socialist politicians in the free world, capitalism and free markets failed miserably to learn from the past. So naturally only they, the politicians, can save the world. They are especially fond of quick fixes. They have obviously not learned much from the past.

The quick fixes of Herbert Hoover after the Wall Street crash of 1929 consisted of a number of measures, none of which resulted in success. Those measures in fact resulted in the effects of the crash hitting the economy harder and deeper, so that the Great Depression lasted longer than was necessary. But that period was, of course, ideal for the march of socialism.

During the economic crisis of the 1970s quick fixes were also applied: prices and income controls, and many more. It was left to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to put an end to all that and create new guidelines.

And now we have a crisis which has its roots in the desire to reach out to the 'poor' of society, resulting in financial institutions everywhere attempting to 'fix' all the damage this caused by airbrushing it all away.
Not for the first time have states deliberated over the poor, only to find later everthing exploding in their faces. It is happening in Venezuela. It happened a number of times in Soviet Russia, and Europe will be burdened by it during times of demographic change. Whenever the state becomes too involved with helping the poor, disasters always have a way of coming to the surface. Politicians never learn those sorts of lessons. The facts simply don't fit in with their political beliefs.

TGF UKIP

As I posted yesterday, the Tories need to be wary of Gordon turning their attacks back on them in his usual snidey way by accusing them of breaking their promise of bipartisanship.

He might well then claim the need of a clear and unequivocal mandate from the British people to fight "this economic war brought to these shores from America" and call a snap election.

Campaigning will be the shortest he can engineer, the focus entirely economic and the question to the voters framed in terms of Gordon and Darling v Dave and Boy George.

ChrisD

"It is fair to say that the Tories have not yet risen to the challenge posed by this crisis. But it does appear that reality will ultimately do for Brown."

???
No, the Conservatives have not provided the political lobby with a contrast to fill their columns as they have demanded, to fit in with the narrative and agenda they are trying to peddle right now.
How many people even remember who the Labour leader was, much less the Shadow Chancellor during the week of Black Wednesday? If I looked back, what would the media have been asking of the Opposition back then at that moment?

And to be honest, trying to now criticise the Conservatives for not coming up with a *another* plan as a contrast during the last couple of weeks is plain daft. They have been out of power for 11 years, and they would be better putting together an economic recovery plan that will be relevant at the time of the next GE. Holding the government to account and scrutinising their actions should be their primary concern right now.
And remember, we have yet to hear from this government on what their *vision* is to be for guiding the country through a recession. I expect to see a vastly changed PBR from the one widely being briefed just a few short weeks ago.

In fact, now the first polls are out and not as good for Labour as they might have hoped. I expect the Downing Street briefing machine to start floating idea's and policies through the media.
Idea's and policies that will be quietly dropped like 42 days and others if no longer politically beneficial.

Travis Bickle

"The Tories will slash spending savagely and hit working class people without mercy."

What, you mean they'd double their starting rate of income tax, and trash their pensions, like the last bloke?

However I do get your drift, sadly when Brown had to abandon Blair's 3 year commitment to Tory economic policy was the day it all started going pear shaped, but more fool the idiot british electorate for trusting a bunch of social engineering student politicians with a perfectly healthy and functioning economy?

Verity

Ganpat Ram - Thatcherite! You're only going back 20 years, man! What about Lloyd George, then? What about Pitt The Younger?