Practise what you preach
Peter Hoskin 8:55am
Our Prime Minister's been laying down the law on Wall Street, telling banks that they must be more open about their bad debts. Ok, so it's good advice – we need to know the full extent of the credit crunch before we can hope to treat it. But the first thought that popped into my head was: he's hardly one to talk.
After all, Brown's idea of debt-keeping is to keep huge chunks of national debt off the balance sheet. That £100 billion Northern Rock debt? Swept under the fiscal carpet. That £30 billion or so of PFI debt? Likewise. And why? All so the now-valueless sustainable investment rule isn't broken – so that he can disingenuously claim the economy's in good shape.
In this and other areas, I suspect Brown's words would go further if he practised what he preached.
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Comments
David
April 17th, 2008 9:14amAbsolutely right. Would it not be so satisfying if one of the chaps he's been meeting with mentions precisely that?
Ethan Hurlington
April 17th, 2008 12:35pmBrown talks about ‘democratic legitimacy’...the Zimbabwean leader has to be elected fairly he says... of course he gained his position through an election, didn't he...
Damon Lambert
April 17th, 2008 1:02pmNevermind the £100bn National Rock Debt and the £30bn PFI debt, what about the unaccounted for Public Sector Pension Deficit the government should carry on its Balance Sheet; and which it would do if it had adopted IFRS like it said it would do. I think you might find that's in region of £500bn to £600bn.
Compare that to other English-speaking countries - the Australians have built a sinking fund to meet their deficit; Ireland publishes 2 figures for Public Sector Debt - with and without their Pension Deficit
Ray
April 17th, 2008 3:45pmBrown obviously taught Enron accountants all the knew!