Opinion is divided in Westminster between those who think that with the financial turmoil the political plates have shifted in Brown’s favour and those who believe that any bounce Brown is getting from this crisis will be temporary. I’m firmly in the latter camp and I’d say that Iain Martin has it exactly right in his Telegraph column this morning:
“In the years ahead there will be unemployment, hardship and social dislocation. Borrowing will be higher, taxes will rocket, spending on services will fall, and it will have its origins not in the Thatcherite mid-1980s but in the past decade of the most reckless financial mismanagement. Labour over-spent, over-borrowed and failed to regulate adequately. Brown wants taxpayers to pay for these mistakes and then have us say thank you. I don’t expect that to have wide appeal.”
Brown is benefiting at the moment from the impression that he is in command of the situation.
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