The whole economic meltdown is less of an opportunity for the left in Britain than the US for the simple reason that Labour was in power here in the years leading up to it. Today, Jackie Ashley bemoans that Brown’s refusal to admit that mistakes were made means that the left might miss the opportunity presented to it by this crisis:
“We really do live in a world ready to accept bigger government and fairer taxes.
Yet to properly exploit that, Brown and his ministers have to change their tune about the past. To hear him claim he made no mistakes, and that everything about the Blair-Brown handling of the boom culture was well judged, jars horribly. If he believes we need to think again about what kind of society we want to be, he has to start by being a bit more reflective. It would give him more authority, more credibility – and make him more interesting to listen to.
It would also rob the Cameron Conservatives of their best gambit, which is simply to point, like the child at the naked emperor, and state the bleeding obvious about past mistakes.”
It is almost comic to hear Brown claiming as he did in The Observer interview that “I don’t want to sound arrogant, but 10 years ago I was making both speeches and proposals to sort out this failure of global regulation and I couldn’t persuade other countries after the Asian crisis of 1998 that it was necessary.” This claim is dubious in the extreme. But if Brown did realise just how big the risks were, why did he let the matter rest as soon as he encountered any resistance? If Brown wants to refight the economic arguments of the past decade, then the Tories should be able to convict him in the court of public opinion of gross economic incompetence.
Comments