Practise what you preach

Our Prime Minister's been laying down the law on Wall Street, telling banks that they must be more open about their bad debts. Ok, so it's good advice – we need to know the full extent of the credit crunch before we can hope to treat it. But the first thought that popped into my head was: he's hardly one to talk. 

After all, Brown's idea of debt-keeping is to keep huge chunks of national debt off the balance sheet. That £100 billion Northern Rock debt? Swept under the fiscal carpet. That £30 billion or so of PFI debt? Likewise. And why? All so the now-valueless sustainable investment rule isn't broken – so that he can disingenuously claim the economy's in good shape. 

In this and other areas, I suspect Brown's words would go further if he practised what he preached.