I’m sorry to do this to you, CoffeeHousers, at the start of a bank holiday weekend
— but I thought you might have a morbid sort of interest in Gordon Brown’s latest role. Turns out that, as expected, our former PM is to join the World Economic Forum in an advisory capacity. He won’t be paid
for his work, although the Forum will cover his staffing costs. One of his spokespeople has told ITV’s Alex Forrest
that his task is to “stop the next financial crisis.” Which is to say, he’ll be saving the world. Again.
If nothing else, it’s yet another demonstration of Brown’s peculiar resilience. Our former PM may be electoral anathema in these parts, but he clearly still holds some allure for the technocrats of Davos, Geneva and Bretton Woods. Even with David Cameron set against him, you wonder whether he might march on to the IMF anyway. He’s certainly building up his CV in the meantime.
All of which has reminded me of the Coffee House poll that we ran last week. “What was Brown’s biggest mistake in government?” it asked — and we never published the final rankings. So, to rectify that, and to shame the World Economic Forum’s HR department, here they are:
1. Deepening the budget deficit during the good years — 54.0%
2. The pensions raid — 10.2%
3. Hiding debt via PFI contracts — 8.5%
4. Ineffective regulation of the banks — 5.9%
5. Failure to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty
6. Not calling an election at the beginning of his premiership — 5.2%
7. Selling off the gold — 4.4%
8. Missing the asset bubble — 4.2%
9. Complicating the tax system — 2.2%
10. The Gillian Duffy gaffe (and other clangers, such as “no more boom and bust”) — 0.1%
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