By rescuing the banks, Brown has illustrated that—in extremis—the government can find the money to do things. As Andrew Rawnsley argues in The Observer this is going to be a problem for Brown in the coming months:
“ballooning government debt points to a severe squeeze on services. Whitehall is already anticipating the bloodiest spending negotiations for a generation. Mr Brown has guaranteed spending only on health and education, which implies serious pain everywhere else.
Politically difficult in any circumstances, the boggling billions directed to the banks makes this even harder to sell to the voters. Every time a cut falls, the cry will go up: you could find £500bn for the banks, but you can’t find £10m for my cherished public service.
Even if voters do credit him with firefighting the financial inferno, they may also regard Gordon Brown as one of the people responsible for lighting the blaze. There’s an interesting debate to be had about when the Age of Irresponsibility began. Was it in 1997 (the Tory version) when Gordon Brown moved into the Treasury and redesigned the regulatory structure? Was it in 1986 (the left’s version) when Cecil Parkinson’s bonfire of controls unleashed the ‘Big Bang’? Does culpability lie with both? Voters are likely to leave that argument to academics and blame the man who has been running the economy for more than a decade.”
Politically, if not policy-wise, Brown is in currently the easy part of the financial crisis. He is the leader trying to guide the country through the storm. But like the bankers, there is a reckoning to come for the Prime Minister.
Comments