Brown reinforces his presence on the world stage

David Ossitt

If this were the plot for a novel; no publisher would want to take it on.

He is of course quite mad.

Norman Dee

The whole world is going totally f***ing crazy, we have facist idiots in charge in europe, sadistic bullies running most of the rest of the worlds countries, and now the poison jock in charge of the money, who said the idiots are running the asylum ?

Victor Southern

Thw World Economic Forum - often honoured by the attendance of Bono and Tony Blair at its conferences.

It is no wonder that the world economy is going to hell in a handbasket when they listen to such as the 3 B's.

Woody

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..............................................................................................

Stepney

Where are the boys from International Rescue when you need them?

Surely if there was ever a job for them this is it - saving the world from the clutches of a deluded madman...

Yours, self-employed and working the whole weekend to pay the taxes the s*d has burdened me with,

Stepney.

x

Stephen Byrne

Just 15 months ago this man put it about he would devote his life to charity or become a school teacher. Why has he changed his mind - or was he lying then?

Anan

This is hilarious, and tragic. What more fitting for definition of "tragicomedy" than this piece of news?

Hold onto your horses people, if you thought 2008 was bad, wait till the 2011 worldwide crash, courtesy Mr "Bigot" Brown.

What is wrong with these economic groups? Can't they see his abysmal financial record in England?

CromwellChiefofMen

will no-one rid me of this turbulent twit?!!!

bojimbo

ROFLMAO .

Tulkinghorn

As I said on the Wall (10.53)

He is clearly advising the Japanese on their tsunami relief budget which is being paid for by a raid on pensions

This man is an embarassment to our country

Woody

Even less time spent in the HOC, if that's possible!

A J Scott

Looks like a case for Lethal Weapon 5 (or whatever number it's reacheed by now). Where are you, Mel, when we really need you?

AF

Yur avin a laugh.

John

McBean like most Jocks is always extremely eager to be anywhere except the Scottish EU Region.

Tommo

Beyond parody. Absolutely beyond parody.

Phil Chuds

You gotta be having a laugh.....I wouldnt trust him to run a tuck-shop , the man is to financial expertise what my Jack Russell terrier is to quantum physics . The curse of McDoom will strike the WEF . Expect some major calamity to afflict this organisation sometime soon.

Jane

I am not surprised as Mr Brown is doing everything in his power to get a position on the world stage. As we all know Tony Blair is one of the 22 members of the board - perhaps he put in a good word? Somehow, his joining this organisation does not fit my expectations of what he is about. The forum is financed by global companies worth $5billion. I have always felt it to be elitist and acts only in the interests of the rich. All I have got each year from its meeting in Davos is platitudes and it seems to have moved away from serious economic issues facing the world and getting too involved in political issues. Am I wrong in suggesting this? On one occasion they looked at refinancing the world economy - guess what- they recommended more debt. A far cry from its early days. I suppose it is a talking shop for the great and good and certainly the spectacle of all those rich men landing in helicopters with their wonderful snow gear keeps me enthralled. As too are the fawning politicians who are invited to attend - GB was one not so long ago.

Is it time now for GB to resign his seat? Is it not time to reduce our representatives further? GB spends so little time on parliamentary business that I am left feeling angry and totally un convinced about the so called pressures on MPs. Too many of them (just look at the register of members interests) are able to pursue so many activities outside of their parliamentary duties that I believe we could reduce the numbers by a further 20%.

oldtimer

The WEF started to go down hill when it embraced the cult of celebrity and Hollywood. Before then it was a serious organisation of considerable utility to people who ran businesses - especially international businesses.

Russ

"He won't be paid for his work, although the Forum will cover his staffing costs"
And who exactly pays for the World Economic Forum???
Bloody Brotish taxpayers for sure. The Bast**d should be hung, drawn and quartered for ruining the UK finances and education, pensions, benefits etc., in fact everything else.

R.McGeddon

I wouldn't leave him in charge of a whelk stall for five minutes.
Some idiots in the Labour party left him in charge of the Nation's finances and look what a mess he left behind. Can you imagine if the World Economic Forum let him get near their petty cash box for a year or two ??
After he would have 'invested' it, all that would be left behind would be IOUs amounting to billions of pounds.
Brown would then proclaim the debt as post neoclassical endogenous 'growth', or some such other twaddle.

roger

Peter you say that this lunatic is not going to be paid for this work but he is being paid by us the taxpayer for being a
representative of his constituants. A job that as we know he is neglecting.If he were my MP I would help force his resignation immediatly.

ATC

I thought the world was governed by psychopathic madmen with a sinister agenda against the people of the planet.

This news only confirms my view.

If this is not a wake-up call for the world, then we're too late and all already doomed.

Hugo Chav

Peter,

Why not top off Easter Friday with a post on Dave the DeStriver.

A man who seems to hate himself and who can't relate to me becasue of his own disgust with himself and Britain.

Brown was Bonkers, Dave is Damaged.

Fergus Pickering

Cor! What larks!

PuppetMaster

The reason they like him is because he said we need to have another, bigger, bailout package ready for the banks. So he would give more of our money to the incompetent crooks that run the banks. The man has no shame nor principles.

tericles

Is Gordon getting back on the gravy train?

tericles

Is Gordon getting back on the gravy train?

AJC

@Stephen Byrne

"Just 15 months ago this man put it about he would devote his life to charity or become a school teacher."

"Why has he changed his mind - or was he lying then?"

Would you believe a contestant for Miss World who spouted that platitude?

dirtbox

Good God Almighty has the man no shame at all ? Rhino skin Brown, he just just not understand the urgent need to crawl under a large rock and stay there away from human contact

Austin Barry

Judging from the picture, Gordon seems to be describing the attributes of one of his fey companions from the hedonistic Cape Cod sojourns of his bachelor days.

TomTom

He deserves it. Not since Philip Snowden has a Labour Chancellor been so easily rolled over by The City. Brown deserves Davos after selling out the UK to look after Shriti Vadera'sd banker friends. Amazing how easy it was to by-pass Parliament and pledge the entire GDP to subsidise banks - Brown should be sitting on huge wads of cash in offshore accounts for the favours he has done

Graham

Doesn't the spokesperson mean "His task is to start the next global crises." He is very good at this!

Baron

This appointment furnishes the final proof for Frank Zappa’s theory that there’s more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

Trev

He's seen what his partner in crime Bliar has got away with,why shouldnt he?

Boudicca

His job is to stop the next financial crisis! You really couldn't make this up. It's as bad as Blair being made Middle East Peace Envoy. The world really has gone mad.

If he's so damn brilliant, why didn't he see the last one coming? He left the UK economy in a worst state than any of his predecessors as Labour Chancellor/PM - and that's saying something when you have the likes of Healey as competition.

AliC

AHHHHHRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!

He is not fit to run a bath. Mr No more boom and bust should spend the remainder of his life paying back his salary to the UK tax payer to make amends for the total carnage he made of the UK economy.

TrevorsDen

One wonders what kind of pig in a poke these guys are buying.
Brown regularly used smoke and mirrors to disguise his ineptitude. Not least debt as 5age of GDP. But as governments borrow more to spend then that spending adds to GDP, so its inevitable that the extra spending as a %age will not show up as as a high a figure as it perhaps deserves. The harsh numbers are a better guide.

Public Net Debt was £348 billion in 97/98 (and set to plateau and dip thereafter - thanks to Tory spending plans). In 10/11 it was £772 and sky rocketing.

Socialists are totally disingenuous in their cherry picking of statistics. Debt having dipped to £312 billion in 2001, it then started its inevitable Brownian rise despite what we were told was growth.
By 2005 it was £425 billion. By 2008 it was £525 billion.
So lets be clear -- the brilliant policies of Gordon Brown -skills which various august bodies claim to value (well he IS coming free) - added £213 billion to our national debt in times of alleged prosperity. Within another 2 years he was going to add virtually another £250 billion!

All this getting on for £500 billion of debt was going to do do something to the GDP - but the ugly debt is still there even if you cover its face with a sack

TrevorsDen

and,
Hugo is an arse...

Martyn

I think some scripts have got muddled here. The Speccie has unfortunately printed part of the text of Ian Fleming's long-lost Goldbungler -- power-mad lunatic, who seeks control of world organizations, crushes mobile phones in his bare hands etc.

Stephen Byrne

@ AJC

No, I wouldn't. And, yes indeed, a vast part of the problem - our problem - is that it seems many journalists now spend no more effort scrutinising the words of a Miss World contestant than they do those of a Prime Minister.

Occasional Ostrich

@TrevorsDen

What these dumb clucks don't seem to be able to get through their skulls is that all their data and calculations based thereon can be checked by any newspaper economics editor these days. Time was, 'way back in the seventies, b-s could easily baffle brains, 'cos so many of the figures were classified, but no longer.
With the number-crunching software that's easily available nowadays, any PPE postgraduate can check the assumptions and if holes in the argument there are, they will be found.

lescam

I hate, loathe and despise ALL politicians.

But bloody Brown is in a class of his own.

He makes the biggest twerps in the Commons look like Einsteins.

He is a deranged lunatic, who should be put in a straitjacket and locked up for life.

lescam

And reading this news has completely spoilt my Easter weekend!

Olde Moore

Does this mean we're in The Last Days - or is it just The End Time?

Perry

It's ridculous that the name of this jumped up bombastic little twerp appears anywhere other than on a list of pending proceedings for actions against this country and its best interests, - in other words tre*son.

And the Hero of the H2B should be there with him, - together with all the other hanger's on.

However, Easter celebrates joy and release after pain and suffering, so let us hope for better times ahead.

Major Plonquer 1

Mary and Joseph hire King Herrod as babysitter....

Mirtha Tidville

Oh come on, when all has been said and done ,cut Cyclops some slack.....It must be hell having to be holed up in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath week in week out with no where else to go..

Davos et al will be breath of fresh air

TrevorsDen

ACJ/Mr Byrne

Well actually Brown 'lectures' at (or for) Harvard. (poor sods) and this 'World Forum' thingy a a sort of charity and he does it for free.

But that is not the point is it? Brown has his MP salary and PMs pension and golden goodbye when he leaves. And all his expenses paid on these jollies.
He is hardly suffering - but I suspect his idea of fun/luxury is a cold bath; so much so he's made sure we are all dipped in an economic one.

dorothy wilson

Behind the scenes Sarah must be doing a brilliant job with her PR skills!

Nicholas

@ Martyn - "Goldbungler" - I like that! What fun "Spitting Images" might have had with that - Goldbungler sitting in his bunker caressing his cat substitute, in this case his father's moral compass, while McBride briefs on the latest "cunning plan".

GDT

GB is an example of the "Peter Principle" to the extreme.

Ian Walker

Actually, it makes perfect sense to have Brown as an adviser on how to avoid financial crises.

You simply ask him what to do, then do the opposite!

TomTom

"Well actually Brown 'lectures' at (or for) Harvard."

Yes most strange how politicians get instant posts at Harvard....but then again Heinrich Bruening whose austerity programme forced through using President Decrees 1930-1932 ended up in 1939 as a Politics Professor at Harvard until 1947

toni

Reading this post and flicking quickly down the numerous predictable comments, I mistakenly misread 'tericles' at 6:19pm, as 'testicles' which frankly, is what these comments are a load of. ;0)

Phil

A misunderstood genius or a complete moron?
Looking at the results of his tenure in office is there any doubt at all?
If spouting bollxxxs,leaving the next two generations to pay of your debts,throwing nokias, lying through your eye teeth and disappearing when the shxx hits the fan are the attributes that the WEF most needs then yes I would say Brown is eminently qualified.

David Bouvier

Don't work - the World Economic Forum has totally "jumped the shark" in terms of having any real importance. It is just a pointless talking shop that real moves-and-shakers go less often and certain no longer move or shake at.

I am sure it will stagger on, eary year with the level of attendees declining. It sounds perfect for Brown. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

He is basically agreeing to sit on a conference panel. Woop-de-do.

Baron

toni, if I may ask, the country you’ve lived until now was what?

wrinkled weasel

I think Moussa Koussa should have become General Secretary of the United Nations. After all it has a long history of appointing people with funny names such as Boutros Boutros Gali and Banki Moon.

Oh, you say, but Moussa Koussa is a war criminal! Well, it didn't stop Kurt Waldheim did it?

Oh, yes, the topic.

Well does the name "Gordon Brown" sound funny to non-English speakers. Because it is the only reason I can think of that this master of despise could ever be elected again to high office.

Occasional Ostrich

GDT @ 11:02

No, no, no, this is not The Peter Principle in operation. IT postulates that one rises no further than one's own level of incompetence. Brown reached his in 1997, has had a promotion since and is STILL in the frame for another.

briank

I acknowledge all 10 headings, but, in my opinion, the most heinous and iniquitous because of the very far reaching consequences, was his policy on immigration. Continuing and expanding Blair's policy he has built a problem for this country which does great damage and may never be resolved. All other 10 headings are, with proper policies, capable of capable of being reversed - may be temporary, even though very damaging effects.

revolution

Brown the son of the manse bankrupted Britain and was forced into marriage in his fifties by homosexual taunts.

tericles

Blair & Brown did more damage to the economy of England than Napoleon & Hitler combined!

tericles

~ Toni: WHO is this Testicles???