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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David
April 17th, 2008 9:14am Report this commentAbsolutely 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 12:35pm Report this commentBrown 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 1:02pm Report this commentNevermind 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 3:45pm Report this commentBrown obviously taught Enron accountants all the knew!
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