Gordon Brown - Zero to, er, Zero

I watched with astonishment the BBC news this evening. Apparently, our Prime Minister is being feted as some sort of hero amongst EU leaders. Now, in fairness, most of the these EU leaders wouldn't know a solid economy if it bit them on the ankle, but that's no excuse. Along with Bill Clinton's social agenda in the US (see previous post) a major contributor to the current problems is Gordon Brown's "light touch equals no touch at all" attitude to regulation, especially in the City of London. During the heyday of his "successful" reign as Chancellor, Gordon was busy defending the speculators and city bonuses, because everything was rosy. Now, he is falling over himself to criticise them. Those of us with memories more capacious than that of a goldfish are now wondering how he has managed to forget all the things he did and said in his old job.

The upshot of all this, and it is actually quite unfortunate, is that the Conservatives are in a difficult position. When Tony Blair took office, he inherited Ken Clarke's legacy - an economy which had been through difficult times, but which was now on the up, fundamentally sound and with a moderate national debt. When Cameron takes office (and he almost certainly will) in 2010 he will inherit probably the largest national debt this country has ever had, an economy in tatters and very low business morale, and will have to rebuild things from scratch. This will be difficult.

Remember, Gordon is not a hero. This is, at least partly, his fault. And now he is intent on spending an awful lot of your and my money, to try and stabilise the problems he and his mate Bill caused. Incompetent? Yes. Unforgivable? Absolutely.