He’s done it. I blogged a while ago about how Gordon Brown lost his battle to have Northern Rock struck off the books, causing trouble for his oft-repeated Brownie that he has reduced debt from 43% to 37% of GDP. In August, the ONS showed National Debt was 43.3% – and had actually been at those levels for a year. So what was Brown to do? Last week, I reported a rumour that he’d ordered up a new debt series to exclude NR. I said something daft at the time, like “he couldn’t – could he?” Well, he did – and in fact he had by the time I blogged.
There is now a new measure entitled “National Debt excluding Northern Rock,” code HF6W. It shows the figures Brown needs – 43% to 37% – thus helping him claim he can afford the bank bailout. And he’ll be repeating it non stop. I smelled a rat when Harriet Harman used the 37% figure in the Commons. Brown is careful with his Brownies – and her mentioning it in parliament indicated that a new debt series had indeed been born. As so often, I underestimated him.
His new debt series has already replaced National Debt (RUTO, may it rest in peace) by HM Treasury in its monthly data series. So – presto! At the stroke of a statistician’s pen, Northern Rock has vanished. Now Brown can get back to lecturing the banks about their immoral methods of debt concealment and lack of transparency.
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