An interview packed with Brownies
Fraser Nelson 3:00pm
Brownies galore in our PM’s interview with the Economist. So many, in fact, that I thought I do a quick Fisk:
The Economist: The big worry seems to be the deficit—the deficit. What should the message should be?
Gordon Brown: I actually think that the first thing that we’ve got to do as a global community—and I said it this morning and I’ll say it again—is that the reforms of the global financial system are not complete. As far as Britain is concerned, we are dealing with a one-off hit as a result of globalisation.
FN: Let us pause, here, to consider the brazenness. Brown’s policies pumped the UK economy up with the steroids of debt. The banking collapse hit us harder than any country because he took the wildest risks. But, to cover that up, he repeats the claim that he first made in interview with FT a few weeks ago: that this is “one-off” adjustment. Brown never says anything just once – he’s a wee tartan robot, who keeps coming out with the same Brownies, time after time. Rest assured, you’ll hear this “one-off” claim again, from Brown’s mouth or Balls’s, pretty soon.
GB: We’ve just experienced the first crisis of globalisation. It is not the usual type of recession that we’ve had in the past which was inflation-driven. Interest rates had to be high, you couldn’t get out of the recession quickly because your interest rates were still remaining high. We’ve got the chance of going for growth out of this recession because interest rates and inflation are low.
FN: Observe the master of deceit at work. Inflation-induced recessions are relatively easy to fix. We’re now in a debt-induced recession, vastly worse. To fix this requires deleveraging – a painful process which can knock a country out for years, as Japan found in the “lost decade” which followed its 1990 collapse. Yet no-one is pointing this out, so Brown sees his opportunity: to portray this debt-induced recession as somehow more benign because rates are at Japanese levels. He is getting away with economic murder.
GB: Every country has had a build up of debt as result of the recession, no country has been immune from that requirement to add to its debt and every country is going to suffer a one-off rise in their debt levels that has got to be dealt with over the next few years.
FN: Yes, indeed. But let us look at how much these countries increased their debt by. Woooh, wait a minute, I just fell into one of Brown’s “verbal snares”. We’re not talking about a country getting into debt, we’re talking about governments saddling their people with debt. So, again, let us see how much debt the governments of various countries saddled their people with:
GB: I happen to think that our deficit-reduction plan over the first four years of halving the deficit is probably the most ambitious of any of the G7 countries.
FN: Brown has given himself seven years to get the public finances back in balance (he last balanced the government’s books in 2000/01). I know of no country with such a leisurely timetable. Again, observe the power of his spin. When he talks about halving the deficit by 2015/16, this is made out as some great national achievement. The PBR before last said (p190, here) that they would “eliminate the deficit on the current budget by 2015-16”. To downgrade this aim, from abolishing it to halving it, is a deplorable lack of fiscal discipline. But Brown uses rhetoric to suggest the reverse.
I suspect Brown’s aim is to exploit the lack of understanding of “debt” and “deficit” – a notorious blind spot in journalism (the BBC gets the two mixed up all the time). When he says “I’ll halve the deficit in four years” he wants people to hear “I’ll halve the debt in four years”.
The Economist: One criticism that was made of New Labour, as a political philosophy, is that it was a fairweather creed, it was a “have your cake and eat it” form of government in which a booming economy and tax revenues allowed you to…
GB: Hold on. It was the other way round. The criticism that was made of Old Labour was that it couldn’t manage the economy.
FN: And, looking around us, who could say that now, eh?
GB: The recognition that happened after 1997 was that the economic competence with which we manage the economy allowed us to have ten years of low inflation, low interest rates and high levels of growth and employment that weren’t wholly dependent on the financial sector. And then we were hit, like every other country, with a global financial crisis.
FN: Again, amazing. I think Brown’s first step is to convince himself of this bogus narrative, then talk about it matter-of-factly.
GB: Now your assumptions in every question that you’re asking was, did we run too high a level of debt prior to the crisis? The answer is that we ran one of the lowest debt levels of any of the G7 countries.
FN: The Brownie here is to give only one definition of “debt” – that of UK government debt. It was the lowest in the G7 when he entered the Treasury. But his trick was to have households borrow, with artificially low interest rates, which blew an asset bubble. Household debt in Britain, as a ratio of household income, was not just the highest in the G7 but the highest any G7 country has ever seen:
GB: So I think what New Labour has shown is, first of all, you can run an economy based on a strong policy for monetary independence, which was the Bank of England.
FN: Funny he should boast. This was the root cause of the recession: the BoE was told to chase only inflation rates, rendering it blind to the debt bubble and asset price bubble. But Brown, in his analysis now, is also blind. The Tories lost the chance to talk about a debt/credit bubble, so there is no rival analysis out there.
GB: Secondly, you can run a strong economy based on public-private-partnerships and instead of this sterile battle for territory between public and private sectors that we saw for the last fifty years, [we have] public and private sectors working together.
FN: An economy? Brown used PFI to conceal debt – nothing more, nothing less. And it was a means of paying for infrastructure contracts, not of running an economy.
GB: But of course the new lesson that I think everybody’s had to learn from the crisis is that what was implicit about the values that underpin the public and private sectors has got to be made explicit. What I mean by that is the values of enterprise and hard work, of taking responsibility and not taking reckless risks and not acting in an irresponsible way.
FN: Irresponsible way? What, like gearing up the UK economy and disguising it as growth?
GB: These are the values that have got to underlie the banking system as well as the political system. I think what has always been implicit in everything that we talk about as individuals when we have a conversation about the banking system, or the political system, I think it was always understood that when you analysed it you had to have it based on values, on clear principles. Now we’ve had to make it explicit because of the level of irresponsibility that existed both in the banking system and, as we saw at times, with the political expenses crisis in the Parliamentary system.
FN: He personally designed the banking regulatory system. He bears, quite literally, more responsibility for this crash than any other person living in Britain.
The Economist: The question that people ask is: looking at the results you’ve achieved so far in Government, you are asking for a fourth term, which is an enormous thing to ask the British public for. People wonder-without casting any aspersions on your intentions-perhaps the results have not been so stellar to have justified such an extraordinarily long time in office.
GB: I would call this the first election of the global age. I think you are talking about uniquely new problems that governments are having to deal with. If anybody had said in 1997, we are going to create an economy where there were two and a half million more jobs, even after the recession, than there were in 1997, very few people would have believed that We didn’t [dare] to guess that. So there are two and a half million more people in work than in 1997.
FN: Great news for the unemployed of Gdansk. As it stands, there are fewer British-born people employed in the private sector now than when Brown came to power. I will stop here. The Brownies are simply overwhelming. This is, of course, how he operates: he keeps going, lie after lie, Brownie after Brownie, until journalists get bored of contradicting him; so when the campaign is in full flow, he can spout his deceitful nonsense without being contradicted by anyone – not even the Tories. I like to think that the blogosphere will tap into people with greater reserves of energy and perseverance.
Previous
Dehsinif Si Ruobal
February 26th, 2010 3:09pm Report this comment"GB: ....1997 ...allowed us to have ten years of low inflation, low interest rates and high levels of growth and employment" THANKS TO THE HEALTHY STATE OF THE ECONOMY THAT WE INHERITED FROM THE TORY PARTY. EVERYBODY UNDERESTIMATED HOW GOOD A CHANCELLOR KENNETH CLARKE HAD BEEN - HE CREATED AN ECONOMY WHICH WITHSTODD TEN YEARS OF LABOUR MISMANAGEMENT - A MAJOR FEAT IN BRITISH HISTORY.
The Cat in the Hat
February 26th, 2010 3:18pm Report this commentThere once was a PM called Brown
Who caused this great country to drown
We all were in debt
But Gord said 'Don't fret.'
I promise I won't let you down.
While Europe returned back to growth.
The UK behaved like a sleuth.
The EU soared ahead.
And GB sank like lead.
Thanks to this stubborn old oaf.
But Gordon refused to accept
That he’d always been wholly inept.
He hadn’t a clue
About what to do
To reduce this massive great debt.
The election he wanted to win
So he kept on spinning the spin
But the Tories had pounced
And Gordon was trounced
And New Labour was chucked in the bin.
mart
February 26th, 2010 3:29pm Report this commentThanks for pointing out the distinction between the terms debt and deficit. I had not been aware of this.
oldtimer
February 26th, 2010 3:30pm Report this commentI think, as you imply, that Dr Goebbels would be proud of him if he was around to listen.
Natasha
February 26th, 2010 3:32pm Report this commentAlthough this Government's economic record is truly appalling, it needs to be countered by effective arguments. The ones you offer here are ineffective, and illustrate precisely why the Tories are making less headway than they should with the electorate.
First of all, everything you say about the crash is said with the benefit of hindsight. During the boom years (which you now regard as 'unsustainable'), the Tories were so impressed by Labour's economic record under Blair that they deliberately crafted an electoral strategy focused on what Oliver Letwin described as 'sociocentric' issues. Because they too failed to predict the credit crisis, the Tories are not exactly in a strong position to reap political dividends from it.
The brutal, and inescapable, fact is that the Tories - signed up as they were to the Washington neo-classical economic consensus - were blind to the failings of the free market model that led to the crash.
You also claim that Brown single handedly designed the banking regulatory system. Absolutely wrong. The global banking supervisory regime is designed around internationally-agreed standards, most of which originated in bodies that also had an excessive faith in the free market model. Basel II allowed banks to use their own value-at-risk models which disastrously under-estimated the true risks of certain asset classes.
It is true that Brown created the FSA, and took responsibility for banking supervision away from the Bank of England, but other countries that have left responsibility with the central bank (e.g. the US, with the Fed) have fared no better during the crisis; some in fact, such as Iceland, have done even worse. The Tory analysis that UK institutional arrangements were to blame is shared by virtually no-one outside the Tory Party. It is quite simply mistaken.
You also accuse Brown of lying about job creation. However, in his interview he did not claim that two million private sector jobs had been created since 1997. He claimed that two million jobs had been created, which is correct.
As I and others have noted elsewhere on this website, the Conservatives need to work hard to develop a positive narrative about how they will make life better for the majority of Britons, rather than trying (usually ineffectively) to pick holes in Brown's statements. The fixation with Brown and his 'porkies' has, paradoxically, played into Labour's hands as it has lulled the Tories into a false sense of complacency. The beginning of a turnaround will come when the Conservatives start to deliver a positive message and (equally importantly) when they stop simply assuming that a return to Thatcherite economic policies is all that is required.
BenM
February 26th, 2010 3:35pm Report this commentThe table of European countries' national debt to GDP ratio just DOES NOT support the Tory panic about national debt. At the end of next year, the UK's level of national debt will be, er, the same as the Euro-area average: below France and only a little above Germany.
A cheaply made insurance advert has an apt message for Tories when it comes to national debt: "calm down dear!".
The obsession is costing you the election.
GeoffH
February 26th, 2010 3:39pm Report this commentAs I said on an earlier thread, the print media as well as the broadcast don't challenge this rubbish.
Why? Because they're mainly NewLab luvvies at heart.
If The Economist can't or won't do it then why should anyone expect a columnist on any of the dailies to do it?
With few exceptions, and they are not allowed anywhere near GB, the British media are lefties. And those who aren't just get angry and cloud their case. Jeff Randall could do it, but he likes to write 'angry' so that's him out.
Ivan D
February 26th, 2010 3:43pm Report this commentRemind me again: what's the problem with Brownies, and how exactly do they differ from Nellies? I'm still waiting for you to Speak Truth To Power about poor old Matt d'Ancona's departure.
TrevorsDen
February 26th, 2010 3:44pm Report this commentA endless string of lies - you might also ask why the interviewer allowed this to happen. Why did he not point out these contradictions to Brown?
Are the press happy to be lied to do they wish to be complicit or are they just ignorant and therefore worthy of the sack?
The great irony (which is the politest way to put it) of this interview is it is for an organ called 'The Economist'
EyeSee
February 26th, 2010 3:44pm Report this commentBrown needs to understand that the phrase 'Labour can't manage an economy' is in the same bracket as the phrase 'the Battle of Hastings was in 1066'. New Labour economics appears to be drawn from the Walrus and the Carpenter. Brown always had one eye on the leadership and the other on the finances, which would explain a lot. 'You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper.'
Roger Clarke
February 26th, 2010 3:45pm Report this commentI must have misssed the bit where he says the words "structural deficit"
Richard
February 26th, 2010 3:54pm Report this commentFN thought you had been a bit quite.....assumed you were too busy coughing that furball up from your throat.
Wow! this GB chap really is the master of the universe if everything you say is true.
Good reason to vote for him I think......too smart for the chuckle brothers by far.
What a bunch of losers couldnt run a Tory revival even if the world economy imploded on a man hated more than any other PM in history (if we were to believe the press)who is disabled, emotionally defunct and yet the heavy weight Toffs can't lay a glove on him.
What is a self respecting Liberal to do.huh?
Yam Yam
February 26th, 2010 3:56pm Report this commentThank you, Fraser, for having the incredible patience to wade through the deeper recesses of the Treasury's statistics in order to expose just what a brazen liar this contemptible man really is.
A lesser mind would have long ago given up and retired down the pub.
Fox in a box
February 26th, 2010 4:03pm Report this commentBenM
you are conveniently forgetting public sector pension liabilities and PFI as well as any other off-balance sheet wheezes Labour have managed to slip past us.
Or take into account how household debt will be serviced as inflation lets rip, the £ tanks and interest rates increase.
But don't worry eh? It's just a commercial...
Tom Burroughes
February 26th, 2010 4:17pm Report this commentGreat piece of fisking, Fraser.
This Ivan D character has a D'Ancona fixation. Someone needs to show him the door, followed by a large bear.
Irene
February 26th, 2010 4:22pm Report this commentFraser,
Debt = how much you have borrowed
Deficit = how much expenditure exceeds income.
If you borrow to cover the deficit you have also increased your debt.
Is this right ?
I'm confused.com!
Man in a Shed
February 26th, 2010 4:24pm Report this commentBrown operates on the lies within lies approach, and the Labour party let's him. They are betraying our country by allowing him to carry on disgracing his office and destroying all of our futures.
Dehsinif Si Ruobal
February 26th, 2010 4:30pm Report this commentBen M -you argue that our debt levels are lower than Germany's. However what Fraser's table shows is that our debt has risen by 81%, yes EIGHTY ONE PERCENT RISE IN FOUR years compared with a rise of 27% in Germany. Germany is adding around 5% a year to its debt figure. We are adding around 15% a year to ours. At this rate we will reach 100% of GDP within three years. Historically our economy has only managed to service a debt of around 40% and has struggled with anything higher. Germany has always been able to service a debt of around 60% and is unlikely to suffer if this increases marginally over the next few years.THIS IS SERIOUS!!
Short the UK
February 26th, 2010 4:45pm Report this commentNatasha,
"The brutal, and inescapable, fact is that the Tories - signed up as they were to the Washington neo-classical economic consensus - were blind to the failings of the free market model that led to the crash."
Very true about the Tories. I disagree with it being the fault of the free market model. If it had been a free market LTCM would have gone down, the insolvent banks would have been broken up and we would not have "state sponsored inflation". The idea that a recession can be inflated with more cheap money has brought us to the point where the ponzi cannot be reflated because the balance sheet has been over extended. We must now have a painful period of deleveraging. If the underlying Keynesianism of too much government spending and base rates far too low, we wouldn't have had such an excessive bubble.
It isn't the free market that is fault but the Charlie's running the show. And yes the Basel regulations meant the banks had their balance sheets full of junk. Not the fault of the free market. I would say the referees, managers and directors got it wrong whilst the players just kicked the ball around the pitch. As a fan of the beautiful game, we scored one big own goal.
Dorothy Wilson
February 26th, 2010 4:52pm Report this comment"If anybody had said in 1997, we are going to create an economy where there were two and a half million more jobs, even after the recession, than there were in 1997, very few people would have believed that We didn’t [dare] to guess that. So there are two and a half million more people in work than in 1997."
And we didn't dare to guess that most of those jobs would have gone to immigrants.
The Clown with the Frown
February 26th, 2010 5:01pm Report this commentSurely the easiest way of understanding the difference between deicit and debt is to compare the country's economy with your own personal finances. Your mortgage is equivalent to the country's debt and your credit card bill is your deficit.
UK plc has just almost doubled its mortgage and it is in danger of having its economy repossessed and it is putting everything on its credit card, which it is unable to pay. Most other countries have historically had a large mortgage which they can afford to pay and their credit card bill is low and affordable.
Billy Blofeld
February 26th, 2010 5:19pm Report this commentFraser,
Excellent article. Gordon Brown has long since realised that the public are unaware of the chaos he has caused.
I've been working on some concepts, that seek to explain reality to the average punter.
Here is one concept.....
A Story Told In 8 Pictures of Different Hats: "How Gordon Brown Destroyed The Economy"
Hat 1 - Mickey Mouse
Hat 2 - The Joker
Hat 3 - The Communist
Hat 4 - The Dunce
Hat 5 - The Money Forger
Hat 6 - Tha Mad Hatter
Hat 7 - Propeller Head
Hat 8 - The Supreme Leader
Hopefully this inspires someone to come up with a better way of outing Gordon Brown to the general public for his economic crimes to this country.............
John Bracewell
February 26th, 2010 5:25pm Report this commentThe country is going to hell in a handcart, the PM is deluded, tells Brownies (as you painstakingly point out), is supported by the most despicable henchmen (Balls, Mandelson, Campbell et al), yet, there is a growing number of people willing to vote for another 5 years of the same, according to the Opinion Polls. I am beginning to think that there must have been something put in the water nationally to adle the brains of the electorate, or there is a massive con going on in the Opinion Polls. I hope it is not translated into real life where postal voting scams, increased number of immigrants voting Labour, increased benefit dependents voting Labour and an increased Public sector vote keep this demented government in power.
If you look at the Opinion Polls the polling average is being skewed by the YouGov daily polls which if you exclude them, the average is 2 percentage points more in favour of the Conservatives. so, YouGov average is 6 per cent Conservative lead, Others give an 8 per cent lead. Still not enough since the marginals effect is an unknown, if it exists.
The 'Heir to Blair' strategy has gone badly wrong, let's see if this weekend's deliberations can change the strategy and fortunes.
AuldCurmudgeon
February 26th, 2010 5:34pm Report this comment"GB: Secondly, you can run a strong economy based on public-private-partnerships and instead of this sterile battle for territory between public and private sectors that we saw for the last fifty years, [we have] public and private sectors working together."
"FN: An economy? Brown used PFI to conceal debt – nothing more, nothing less. And it was a means of paying for infrastructure contracts, not of running an economy."
You're assuming he's speaking about the past.
Marcher Baron
February 26th, 2010 5:48pm Report this comment@EyeSee "Brown always had one eye on the leadership and the other on the finances, which would explain a lot." Definitely; he must have kept the blind eye on the finances!
Holly ......
February 26th, 2010 5:59pm Report this commentFraser, you are now seeing what we have known for ages.
This is what I've meant when I've said,on so many occasions,"Brown is making the MSM look stupid".
Be honest,how many times did you have to read what Brown had rambled,before it made any sense?(translated from bull to English)
With all the 'explicit' 'implicit' bollocks.
The bit about "economic competence with which we managed the economy....weren't wholly dependent on the financial sector",
you have to laugh out loud at that.
A lot of us out here,on hearing that,know 100% whatever Brown said before it and everything he says after it,is bull.
The 'one off,global age' bull.
We have had to listen to this rubbish,out here & watch you lot,(as I call you in frustration NOT malice)going along with this stupid stupid man.
The PFI..have you read about this thing?
All off the books.YAY for Google.YAY!!
The silly amounts,borrowed from PUBLIC MONEY to fund these things.
.Mar 09-£2bn public money to private companies.
.Apr 09-£120m public money for a new waste disposal unit in Manchester.
.May 09-£30m to BAIL OUT a second PFI project-a£700m waste treatment plant in Wakefield.
That is just in three months of 2009.All public money ALL off the books.
Please hold this shit for brains to account.
A nice BIG piece...in words the masses can understand...and,if you can,explain what Brown is trying to bamboozle us with.
Nearly as big an ask as the public giving him another go at running the UK.
Thank you for this post.
Holly
xx
PS How's the little one & mum?
Mark M
February 26th, 2010 6:20pm Report this commentBenM
See, you're doing it now. The Tories are obsessing about the 'deficit' more than the debt. And the reason for that is that net debt continues to climb and climb after 2011, from 89.2% to, well, who knows?
It's like a driving a car towards a cliff edge. Debt is how close you are to the edge of the cliff, the deficit is how fast you're going. If you don't slow down (reduce the deficit) you will eventually go over the cliff, regardless of how far away from the edge you started.
2trueblue
February 26th, 2010 6:46pm Report this commentAnyone who can not understand that we are in a deep economic hole is on another planet. We actually do not know what the debt is because Liebore have a different accounting method... you don't put all the debts on the balance sheet, so they don't show up. If UK were a PLC it would be considered fraud, and the people running it would be in jail. The same can be said of the EU accounts.
GeaffH, spot on . The media in this country have been dumbed down and serve Liebore. There are few journalists, both in and out of Westminster who have any impartiality. The BBC do not understand journalism, or the fact that they are a public body paid for by us, the public.
BillyBlofeld. the public are unaware because the media do not inform them.
Man in shed. The Liebore party let him because they do not care, and the media belong to Liebore.
Fraser, liked the post.
Dehsinif Si Ruobal
February 26th, 2010 6:57pm Report this commentA more powerful way of representing the data in Fraser's table would be to show the percentage increase in the debt figure over 4 years:
Ireland 250%
UK 102%
Spain 85%
France 42%
Portugal 39%
Euro Area 36%
Greece 33%
Germany 27%
Italy 17%
This is when the UK figures begin to look SCARY!!!
bruce
February 26th, 2010 7:52pm Report this commentCould someone one time chuck in, "so what work did you do exactly for your constituency in 2009 - let's have some examples?".
The claimant count unemployment rate in his seat is higher than the Fife average, which in turn is higher than the Scottish average.
The man may well pull a Basil Fawlty and pretend to faint to avoid answering.
2trueblue
February 26th, 2010 8:14pm Report this commentEyesee.
It is not Brown who needs to understand that 'Liebore can't manage the economy', it is the voting public that need to understand that fact.
Simon Stephenson
February 26th, 2010 8:18pm Report this commentThere have been many deeply depressing happenings in recent years, but none, as far as I am concerned, quite as bad as the fact that 30% of the voting public are apparently indending to favour this appalling man, and his monstrosity of a party, at the forthcoming election.
It's tragic to think it, but maybe the population of the UK has reached a level of vanity and stupidity from which it is no longer able to recognise what is necessary to save itself, let alone lead itself back to prosperity.
The one light on the horizon is that saner spirits abroad may see in us something worth saving, and that international finance will force us to adopt the sort of mature reality and discipline which we ourselves seem completely to have lost sight of.
Michael Booth
February 26th, 2010 9:30pm Report this commentA billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion Pounds ago was earlier today for Gordon Brown, OPM* waster extraordinaire.
Hat tip to Tuscan Tony
Noa Zrk
February 26th, 2010 10:40pm Report this commentA nice article Fraser.
Brown has always tried to cultivate the image of a 1960's bank manager, boring, staid, absolutely trustworthy with money.
The truth is, the barsturd has robbed the old folks of their savings, emptied the safety deposit boxes, stripped the current account deposits, re-mortgaged the building itself several times and operated his own printing press in the back room.
His reward for this?
As with any senior bank employee, a smashing bonus and index linked pension, backed of course by his depositors.
The word "Perfection" fails to even start to describe the black grotesque beauty of his crimes.
skynine
February 26th, 2010 10:54pm Report this commentRPI inflation under Labour has been higher than during the last 4 years of the Conservative Government yet he still harps on about his success.
His pants must be burning hot.
Major Plonquer
February 27th, 2010 1:35am Report this commentGB: Every country has had a build up of debt as result of the recession, no country has been immune from that requirement....
Headline from today's China Daily:
Reserves Rise to $2.4T.
Does having so much cash it won't fit in your trousers count as debt? Or maybe China isn't a real country? As the Chinese would put it 'Blown is a crown'.
Frank P
February 27th, 2010 1:58am Report this commentBecause I have been advised by my quack that getting inordinately angry is likely to complicate an already tiresome medical condition, I have to find ways of venting my profound contempt for Gordon Brown vicariously. Luckily today The Devil (the one in the kitchen) reprises a few of his more colourful delineations of the Brown one's shortcomings.
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/02/bully-for-you.html
Not only did he do the job far than than I could've, but his prose reactivated my chuckle gland for a full five minutes. I strongly recommend the link, for those with strong stomachs.
TGF UKIP
February 27th, 2010 6:03pm Report this commentMy original comment seems to have been yet another one for the "disappear" bin but let's try this one.
Interesting analysis of implications of Brown's sociopathic behaviour from Jenni Russell on the Guardian website.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/25/only-paralysis-fear-pervades-workplace
Sunday papers could be interesting tomorrow, especially if one of them has got a civil servant or colleague to spill the beans on Brown's bullying. I wonder if the BBC had an inkling of such a story and that's why their political staff is on standby - to rubbish the leaker and defend Brown.
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