Brown is not playing by the rules any more

Close the doors, open the books

Over the top twaddle. What is so magic about a figure of 40%?

The real story is that the golden genius of Ed Balls has been exposed as tin. Balls even wrote a book about how brilliant he was and how his fiscal rules were transforming global economics.

Now the truth is out - they were written down on the back of an envelope and are no longer fit for purpose.

Of course additional government borrowing is the correct response to the threat of recession. If some arbitrary rule says otherwise then it is the rule that is wrong.

GS London

Frankly, this sort of behaviour from a supposed statesman makes me want to emmigrate to France - at least then there's no pretense to "stewardship," "prudence," or anything so remotely fictional. I dearly dearly hope that the electorate realises this corrrupt and inverted sense of duty, the needless and hurtful politicking, and the belligirent damage this is doing to our pockets and the reputation of this country.

David C

I thought things couln't get much worse.
This is an act of criminal irresposibility.
Cameron needs to act now if he wants to succeed in Government. They should forget their holidays; the whole of the Conservative front bench needs to be on their feet, placing the blame for the coming mess squarely where it belongs.
If ever a 'palace coup' was needed, it is now!

David

Brown will also of course hope to rely on people like you who demand tax cuts, in order to try and create splits within the party.

I hope you don't play his game.

Faceless Bureaucrat

Mmmm…… as I posted earlier this week, I don’t think we can wait until 2010. Radical action is needed here to force an early General Election before the UK economy descends to the level of Zimbabwe. So I ask again (more in hope than expectation), what are the options here?...

Gladstone (deceased)

"The Irish government decided a few weeks ago that it would tighten its spending this year, because tax receipts were falling. Is this idea so hard for Gordon Brown to grasp? The entire country is cutting back its spending, why can't government?"

Also, apparently, too difficult for the Tory Party to grasp. They are, after all, committed to the same expenditure plans.

Fraser Nelson

Close the doors, nothing is magical about 40% - especially as debt is already 44% by the Maastricht definition. What's significant is the direction of travel. Brown has a crunch moment: he has less revenue so does he cut spending, as Ireland and every responsible gvt will do, or does he keep on with his wasteful bonanza and leave tommorow's taxpayers to foot the bill. I believe he will now pursue a startegy of vandalising the public finances, to make life difficult for the Conservatives. I had expected this to come next year, but if he's started now that means he can do much more damage in his remaining two years.

Mike, Brighton

Yes but this could worsen Labours electoral defeat. If a narrative takes hold that Brown is operating a scorched earth policy and taking economic decisions to damage the incoming Tory government then whatever fig leaves of economic credibility he [Brown] has left disappear and it adds to the "time for a change" theme.
It's not a great election campaign where your actions show the belief you will lose

maringa

It appears self-evident that the government does not have the usual worry we citizens/subjects have when borrowing. Money I borrow now, is money I will have to pay back later. Money the Labour government borrows now, is money another government will have to pay back later.

I also wonder if there is an in-built bias towards financial profligacy in a system where our ministers do not appear to have to manage their own private budgets. MPs (and therefore ministers) are used to having allowances (rather than salary) pay for what most consider to be ordinary household expenses, and have therefore lost the habit of matching expenditure to income. For those of us living on our salaries, we manage our affairs around our income. MPs simply claim for reimbursement of monies spent.

Richard Lowe

I‘ve said it before but I’ll say it again: the best commentary on this sort of thing is to be found at the Daily Mash http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/government-to-consolidate-all-its-debts-into-one-low-monthly-payment--200807181107/
(apologies for not knowing how to embed a link)
Good pieces about Helen Mirren and Brown and Cameron’s holiday planes too.

john miller

Let me cast my mind back - I seem to remember that borrowing your way out of trouble ended up with inflation rates of 25%. This, combined with the BoE's reluctance to increase interest rates will ensure real misery in a few years time for the pensioners who are retirng on the emasculated pensions left to them after Brown's raid on their funds.

This is the man who claims to want to protect the poor and vulnerable. Great idea, but when every action you take makes them poorer and more vulnerable, it makes the lying hypocrisy even harder to take.

cuffleyburgers

Government borrowing is no more no less than deferred taxation.

Mr Brown has clearly decided that he can no longer tax current spending, and this is his response.

Rather than cutting spending.

He has already taxed the next generation heavily through his increases in the public sector pension exposure, and most shamefully of all, through his insane PFI programme.

To "Close the doors, open the books" - you are correct that increased spending is an acceptable response to recession, but this government's spending taps only seem to turn one way. Spend when things are good, spend more when things are bad. And when things are really bad, spend even more and mortgage the future.

The man has now gone beyng incompetnece to evil. He MUST know what he is doing and the sage of Fife doesn't care.

At the end of all this, he must go on trial for his serial betrayals of the people of this country.

Ian C

Faceless Bureaucrat, "the answer is events, dear boy, events"......

It cannot and will not go on. But something unforeseen will be the tipping moment. Trouble is it is not in anyone's control, least of all Cameron's, so they have to press on with the public assumption that another 2 years of this is what is expected while the subliminal message is directed at those who can do something about it - the Labour Party. They must either kill themselves off by not sticking in the knife or they live to fight another day by doing so.

That is the calculation they will all be doing this sumemr holiday. I hope they all have a really fun summer......

Chuck Unsworth

And which particular 'Rules' are they? Those that he made up? Those that others made up? Those that he will deny exist?

To Brown 'Rules' mean nothing, 'Laws' mean nothing, 'Morality' means nothing, 'Duty' means nothing, 'Integrity' means nothing and 'Courage' means nothing.

Ray

Sadly, Gladstone (deceased) has an all-too-valid point. Wake up, Messrs Cameron and Osbourne, before it's too late!

Philip Clark

"Over the top twaddle. What is so magic about a figure of 40%?"

Er... because it's a rule of thumb which says that that's the maximum an economy can sustain?

"Of course additional government borrowing is the correct response to the threat of recession."

Didn't that view of economics go out in 1979? The truth is that the Government is borrowing for the worst reason: to shore up losses in tax revenue. "Fixing" the 10p tax mess is to cost more than it raised in the first place, the fuel tax escalator has been postponed, house sales and hence stamp duty are down, and VAT receipts are probably predicted to fall due to the loss of consumer confidence... what the government needs to do is what most of us do if our income falls: cut expenditure.

Dumb Engineer

Is the term ‘current economic cycle’ a euphemism for ‘boom and bust’? If so, we weren’t supposed to be having any more of those.
Is the debt under discussion between us and our government, or between this country and the world? Is it an internal or an external problem?

Gareth Sutcliffe

It is also posisble that GB is smoking the Tories out. The Tories commit to Labour's spending plans to neutralise it as an issue, so GB makes it appear that he will carry on spending like there's no tomorrow to see if the Tories will follow him, which they may not.

If GB truly believes that higher spending is a vote winner then getting the Tories to retract their pledge to match Labour spending will be to his political advantage.

Diana

Quite agree David C...the Tories must make the biggest possible hoo ha about this. They must spell out to the electorate what Labour are doing. This country must not be allowed to go any further down the drain. Every media outlet worth its salt must point this out, and demand answers from Labour, and not let this fall from the news agenda.

Lawrence

It does seem strange that this is found out just after the last PMQs we'll be having for a while...

TrevorH

On the contrary Mr Sutcliffe, if Brown now sends spending through the roof it will give the Tories an opportunity to rein back on their pledge.

If Brown abandons his 40% rule it could well turn out to be his 'pound in your pocket' moment. Wilson could not recover from this little 'brownie' and Brown will no doubt see his remaining credibility shredded.

'Scorched earth policy' is a good analogy for Browns current attitude. Another analogy is that he is behaving like the worse kind of 'hoody' hooligan, vandalising the nations finances because he cannot have the fruits of other peoples labours.

Andrew W

But the up side is that, when the Conservatives get there they will have no choice but to cut welfare to the bone, cut public sector jobs to the bone and, perhaps even more important, slash public sector pensions. Only absolute calamity will allow this, even though it is essential for the long term financial health of the country.

Fraser Allonby

Fraser, for Gordon to be deliberately wrecking the finances because he wants to scupper the Tories is as far fetched as saying the fuel duty cut is related to Glasgow East. Such a decision would involve Gordon facing up to his own failings and expecting to lose the next election. Gordon is still moving armies from his bunker which were long ago lost.

Angry of SE1

Fraser,

OT but are you going to comment on the Smith Institute Report. The BBC have given it their usual whitewash but i would be interested to hear your take.

Nicholas

I have always thought that Brown is all about the Brown Project and party politics rather than the duty and responsibility of government. He has "governed" as though fighting an election campaign against the Tories and has been mainly concerned with preserving a false image of himself.

After the parliamentary recess and before swanning off he arranged maximum air time with his private TV company, the BBC, to appear on our screens in the quasi-image of The Great Communist Leader, The Father Of His People. Why him on knife crime and not Jacqui Smith? It was really rather transparent (one of the few things about his government that is), but I suppose some fall for it.

Tiberius

New Labour was always treacherous and juvenile, so no one should expect anything different from Brown as he hears the equivalent of guns approaching his bunker.This particular announcement is his equivalent of sending the Jugend out to meet the Red Army.

I hope the electorate remembers the source of the misery. The Tories could do worse than to use my beloved rant from Peter Hitchens to the Wolverhampton QT audience, that you vote Labour, you pay more tax. It ought to be part of the national curriculum.

Silent Hunter

David C.

Exactly!.....well said.

It's wholly disingenuous of Brown to use the Institute of Fiscal Studies to 'legitimise' this hike in borrowing; claiming that the IFS is 'independent' of government ie: not directly funded by government, and therefore, somehow credible.

Which is fine & dandy until you find out where the IFS actually get their funding from.

Step forward the Economic & Social Research Council; which IS a government funded body.
They provide the funding for the IFS.
So it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the IFS are unlikely to gainsay the very government who DO pay their wages, even if it is via another party.

I suppose you could call it ....New Labour Stealth Funding LOL

Gordon Brown & his corrupt government are all LIARS and should be removed from power before they do yet more damage, because it won't just be us picking up the tab for this, but our children and (if New Labour are allowed to screw up for another 2 years) our grandchildren.

Close the doors, Open the books

Didn't that view of economics go out in 1979?

ha ha ha. Don't mistake Tory rhetoric for Tory reality. Thatch and Major borrowed more (as a proportion of national income) than Gordon ever has.

or ask Ronnie Reagan - another great hero of the right. He borrowed money hand over fist.

zhukov

I don't think Lord Turnbull was aware how prescient his observation would turn out to be. Brown's "Stalinist tendancies" are now taking on an historical context. Presumably Brown forsees the unions driving their public sector members on to the over extended Cameron troops in some Browngrad turning point.

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Allonby, Brown has his eye on his legacy. The decisions he makes now will mean he will be influencing spending policy for another ten years. I think that will be his wider goal. Personally, I believe Brown would be happy taking us to an Italian-style Budget deficit but could not do this for politcial reasons. Now he can blame the downturn to do what he wanted to do all along: spend, spend, spend. He will perhaps take the Reagan view that the national debt is big enough to look after itself.

oldtimer

Brown may look at this extra borrowing and spending as an each way bet. If the Tories disown it (as is likely) - Brown will denounce "Tory cuts" as the basis of his election campaign. If he loses the election (the likely outcome), Cameron and co will be saddled with high debts and/or taxation.

The only course for Cameron and co, in the face of this ruse, is to ensure by all means possible, that the narrative puts the blame squarely on Brown. At a time when everyone else is having to tighten their belts, the idea that government should do the same should be a sellable one.

Carol-Ann

And Brown has the cheek to claim he is the only person who can be trusted to 'make the right long term decisions' for this country. The Tories should go hard on this and explain to the electorate what this will mean for the future. Also if the media doesn't challenge the government on this it will expose their bias once again, because if this were the Tories it would be big news for weeks.

John

What twaddle, Close the doors. Which part of 'Gordon made a categorical undertaking, but as usual it turns out that he was lying' don't you get?

Trumpeter Lanfried

Brown is now now driven, above all else, by his hatred of the Tories. The cabinet can't even get him to discuss Labour policy. All he wants to talk about is the Tories.

Hysteria

Trumpeter - any evidence or sources? - interesting post

JohnA

The Tories need to nail him on this one. And we need to write a rule into our constitution that prevents Treasury spending beyond agreed limits, except by a referendum of all taxpayers.

Lola

You know, I can't believe this analysis of Brown's personality. I have realised that he is entirely deceitful, but this vindictiveness is unbleiveable in someone who is Prime Minister and supposedly a statesman. Surely to God no-one would be as crass (in this modern age - Hitler and Stalin being dictators and dead) as to visit penury on whole country purely for politics? It just re-inforces my view that anyoen that wants to be PM is fundametally unsuited to the job.

And anyway what will he achieve? It will be another 15 to 20 years of non-labour governments to sort out the mess. The misery of people caught up in the fall out will be dire. It could even bring on some form of revolution, with shades and miners strike type civil unrest. Or is this deliberate? To make plans for this to happen is criminal behaviour.

If all this is so he must be got out of power, now. Not all of his party are of such mean-spritedness or despicableness. Can't some of them be encouraged into a palace revolution for the sake of the country as a whole?

My bet is that he will also try to foist the Euro on as our situation deteriorates.

Watervole

I agree with Faceless bureaucrat - 2010 is too long to wait. Brown is a vindictive psychopath intent on destroying not only this generations, but those to come.

Simon Denis

Vindictive psycho is going it a bit; peevish, self-righteous mediocrity is more accurate. And it's not just him. Much of the Labour party shares in this spiteful view of politics. As Fraser Nelson says, they hope to spend the country into a hole and blame the hole on the tories. At the same time, they will attack them when they take the unpopular measures needed to clear up the mess. As socialism is now wholly discredited - not least by the Blair/Brown bonanza - it is ruses and dodges of this kind which will keep Labour afloat.