Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A transcript of half-truths, exaggerations and Brownies

Many of you expect Gordon Brown to lie so much that it’s not worth reading a rebuttal of his half-truths, exaggerations and Brownies. Me, I’m addicted. And fascinated. He’s a very clever guy, whose excuses and fake narratives are carefully constructed. He’s also deeply unoriginal, so whatever new excuses he cooks up we can expect to hear repeated for the foreseeable future. How can explain away sterling’s plunge? The absence of any sign of economic recovery – and implicit suggestion that his stimulus has been an abject failure? And how can he explain his ten years as Chancellor? On the radio this morning Evan Davis started his interview with Gordon Brown by a warning that he wouldn’t take his waffling avoidance techniques. “I’m going to try and chivvy you along a little bit,” he said. And we heard the PM’s latest bunch of excuses for his destruction of the British economy. I have done an edited transcript together with some of my thoughts:

GB: Every recession in the last 60 years has been caused by inflation… this is a completely different event that results from a global banking crisis. America is in recession, caused by irresponsible lending practices. There are issues of regulation to deal with.

[FN: No, this probem was caused by a debt explosion – ie, the over-supply of money. The old rules had inflation as a proxy for the supply of money, but this didn’t work because of the deflationary shock of globalisation. The Bank of England fixes the price of loans, not the bankers. The BoE acting under Brown’s instructions let the debt taps on full – creating an asset bubble which has now broken.]

ED: How long are you expecting the recession to last?

GB: It depends on the degree of international co-operation.

[FN: As if! No serious economist would argue that the date of the UK economic recovery can be materially influenced by ‘international co-operation’.

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