Another trip, another embarrassment for Brown

For a while it looked like Brown was about to go to a country without some comic mishap. But he didn’t let us down. Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean President, noted at her joint press conference with Brown how her government had been able to introduce a significant fiscal stimulus because of their “decision during … the good times in copper prices, we decided to save some of the money for the bad times and I would say that policy today is producing good results.” – a prudent approach that Brown, sadly, didn’t take in Britain.

It’s worth noting that Bachelet is authentically Keynesian: the whole principle behind stimulus is that the state reduces debt in the boom and counter-cyclically gears up in a bust. There isn’t a word for what Brown did (borrow, then borrow), not a printable one anyway. But suffice to say that for a British PM to be lectured in economic prudence by a Latin America is a new low in the sorry limbo dance which is the Brown premiership.