Paul Krugman’s Rather Odd Love Affair With Gordon Brown

I wouldn’t ever dream of debating economics with Paul Krugman*. Politics, however? Well that’s a horse of a different colour. The Nobel laureate is, it seems, in Britain and he has this to say:

Weird politics here in London, with Gordon Brown desperately unpopular even (or maybe especially) among those who surely share his general ideological outlook. And yet …

…It’s not far-fetched to imagine that Britain will soon be experiencing at least a modest recovery, even as its neighbors languish.

Yet that possibility doesn’t seem to factor into any of the political discussion. Even if one grants that is true – and, who knows, perhaps it is! Let’s hope so! – it still seems a pretty optimistic view and one that, one can’t help but suspect, is coloured by Mr Krugman’s own politics. Mr Krugman may approve of Gordon Brown and his policies but he doesn’t seem to take any account of the enormous quantity of debt with which Brown has saddled this country, far less with the mistakes Brown made as Chancellor which left this country’s position vis a vis the financial crisis, rather worse than it necessarily would have had to be.