Brown shouldn't expect a Budget bounce

Short the UK

It is now too late to change course. The country has become a Submerging Economy, leading to us becoming an Undeveloping Nation.

Cynicus Econmicus nails it:

"The reality is that many of the countries in the West, and I refer in particular to the US and UK, are unfit for the competition. Putting it in both simple and accurate terms - we do not produce enough value of goods and services to support our current lifestyles. This is not a new situation, but has been developing for a long, long time. All that has happened is that the reality of the situation has been obscured from us through a series of bubbles. The dotcom bubble, the telecoms bubble, the stock market bubble, the housing bubble and the credit bubble. One after another they have come, but the greatest bubble of all will be the final bubble to burst - and it will explode our complacency. This final bubble is the currency bubble. In the case of the £GB it has been rapidly deflating, but is now set to burst. In the case of the $US, once it starts to deflate, it will pop violently. Of all the factors that have hid our underlying economic fragility, the currency bubble is probably the most significant. In crude terms, those who have been selling all the commodities, goods and services to us have been lending us the money to buy their output. As a result, they have amassed huge amounts of our currencies, and are now starting to realise that the paper they exchanged for goods has no meaningful underlying value."

Jim Rogers also nailed it when he said Sterling was finished because the North Sea was abating and the City is a busted flush.

The only way to some sort of salavation is an austerity budget and no more bailouts. Let's cramdown the capital structure.

oldtimer

The need is for a change of government, not a government of national unity where none exists. Brown and co have got it wrong time and time again. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution to the problem.

Mr Kettle is just filling space (his column) and making idle speculation.

seb

I like the idea of a 'national government'. Hilarious. The Kirkcaldy Autist believes he is the nation and that we already have a national government.

john oxfordshire

How clever it would be for the Conservatives to announce that they would re-introduce the 10p rate of tax !!!!!!

Wilhelm

He looks like a serial killer, Im scared, very scared.

DW

Now this is the line that Labour will start to push - a national government. They will want to avoid a general election if at all possible. Everytime they float the idea, all democrats must shoot the idea down in flames. A General Election is what this country needs and expects. We didn't vote for Brown as PM and we sure as hell have not voted for a National Government.

TrevorDen

With the public finances in their present state - with Britain the most indebted nation in the history of the planet with unemployment rising with taxes already slated to rise and with public expenditure out of control ---- just what rabbit do you expect Brown (sorry Darling) to pull out of the hat?

It is of course possible that the glove puppet (or dormat if you prefer) might try to try to bribe us with our own money

The 10p tax debacle was such a crude piece of cynical manipulation by the way that it really should completely destroy ANY sympathy that anyone might have for Browns current political situation and destroy ANY faith in his social and political bona fides. Speaking personally I think Jeremy Clarkson should be congratulated for his restraint in his analysis of Browns character.

luke

This is probably right.

Key issue for labour is that their support continues to track, almost perfectly, confidence in people's own financial prospects. If these start to turn up during the course of the year, then all other things being equal, the gap will close.

JONNY

Apropos one Brown:
if you want a morning giggle
tune into the comments in the Mail
over those Clarkson 'smears'

Hawkeye

The budget will be a damp squib because what can he do?

1) Spend lots more money.....Errr... heard it before, no longer impressed, beginning to wonder how many £20 notes are left

2) Not spend money and invalidate his narrative to date that borrowing is the way to get out of a borrowing crisis

3) Do something radically different (I don't know so don't ask) which means he has invalidated the raison d'etre for everything he has done so far.

Then there is still the vehicle excise duty and 10p tax fix to sort out - they were slapped on last year's budget in a panic, but one is to due to start this April and the other is due to stop. Whatever he does with these he will come out on the wrong side of somebody. If he abolishes the 10p tax, the same coalition who gave him a roasting last year will get him again. If he re-establishes the 10p rate the tories will have him for making the cock-up in the first place, patching it last year and then putting it back again. "What a disorganised shambles" they will scream.

There is no wiggle room left, there is no d*mn money left. What can he budget for?

Slightly O/T - Peter Hoskins - the implicit assumption in your article is that Brown is writing the budget. You make no mention of Chancellor Alastair Darling. Shome mishtake shurely?????

Michael Hargrave

No matter what Gordon may come up with, he will not be able to escape the baggage that he has hung around his neck since 1997. In an election there will be the photos of him such as you have in your piece, the jowly miserable schemer for which he has become synonymous. His firefighting credentials will always be shackled by his arsonist background. Unlike with holy water, his sins(legacy) will not be expiated by a blizzard of economic frenetic activity.

Or maybe they will. We always get the government we deserve.

Wilhelm

Jeremy Clarkson said in Australia that ''Gordon Broon is a one eyed Scottish idiot. He's seen the books and he knows that we are in deep deep shit, yet he's lying about it.''

Expect the fake indignation squeeeling from
liebour, Ho Hum ! One word Clarkson missed
out was Broon is a '' Scottish traitor ''.

GS London

What really bothers me is that the many who are striking this week will still, at the point of voting, vote labour becasue they're unionists, or bacasue they could "never" vote for someone else. So really, Labour can treat them like dirt and not care. As for the budget: Who is going to believe it?

Nicholas

I cannot understand the media obsession with Brown's chances of improving his position. This is a dead duck government with the biggest, deadest duck of all desperately flundering for improved headlines but a lamentable record in office which, 30 years ago, would have caused every journalist in the land and even the BBC to bay for his blood.

Brown is a disaster. New Labour is a disaster and has been disastrous for Britain. Every effort should be directed towards hounding them from office, not speculating about how their sleazy spin machine might pluck a little reprieve from the long, painful, oh-so-unnecessary death throes he and his motley crew are making us watch.

Enough is enough. When it looks like crap and smells like crap the chances are it ain't a rose. For goodness sake put the boot in.

Ivy Eileen

"National Government" - Mathew Parris warned a couple of months ago in the Times that this rabbit might, just might, be pulled out of the hat by Brown. His advice to DC and Tories was to agree with it ONLY if Brown resigned and left the scene. (But who would be PM ? Implication was that would be a Labour appointment as they are of course currently the Govt.).

Ivy Eileen

"National Government" - Mathew Parris warned a couple of months ago in the Times that this rabbit might, just might, be pulled out of the hat by Brown. His advice to DC and Tories was to agree with it, but ONLY if Brown resigned and left the scene. (But who would be PM ? Implication was that would be a Labour appointment as they are of course currently the Govt. Cripes, who ? - Man of Straw, Harperson, Milipede, Badger .... no, all proper-thinking people would want an election would be necessary).

TrevorsDen

Ivy is so right she mailed it twice - we had a wartime coalition but that was after Chamberlain resigned and Labour would only join if it was Churchill not Halifax to leader.

Tiberius

Cameron doesn't need to consider a unity government because he can win a majority.

The line should be be that an unconditional surrender is required from NuLab because they have wrecked just about everything. Cameron would be failing in his duty to agree to anything else.

Kevyn Bodman

Under NO circumstances short of a war for national survival should anyone agree to a government of national unity.

The UK needs an election and needs to make the choices that an election entails.

cuffleyburgers

But Clarkson then spoiled it all by apologising.

AngloWelshDragon

As I understand it Clarkson only apologised for the personal remark about Broon's appearance. He hasn't apologised for calling him an idiot or a liar.

Personally I think Clarkson was very restrained. I call the incompetent t**t far worse several times a day!

Ivy Eileen

Trevors Den (and others) - apologies. Fat finger syndrome.

TGF UKIP

Wilhelm 10.55 am, thanks, I hadn't seen or heard the whole quote only the first part of which is being utilized by the BBC.

The second part is the one that counts "He's seen the books and he knows that we're in deep shit yet he's lying about it."

That deserves wider airing and if I know Jeremy Clarkson he'll make sure it gets exactly that.

Meanwhile, if the wretched Cameron Tories had anything about them (which demonstrably they don't) they would pick this up and milk it.

Trumpeter Lanfried

He will pull something meretricious out of the hat at the end of the budget speech. It's what he does. And the Labour back benches (or at least the whips) will cheer. And in their hearts, despair.