Although Gordon Brown should be credited with keeping us out of the Euro, if the Conservatives had been in power at the time, they also would have decided against joining the Euro.

I see your point and raise you a "If Murdoch had not been in charge, GB might still be PM!"

(No 48 in the "If ifs and buts were pots and pans!" series.)

I only managed to study Economics for 2years, but even I understand that better than someone who has, say, a degree in Modern History.

I can't embed the link for some reason, but he is talking about Mitt Romney not meaning what he's saying.

I think this links to what he was saying:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/...anything-hes-saying-

and page 2 has the bit about Romney:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/...g-hes-saying-?page=2

That's it. Thanks Loro.

i'd give him a statue for flinging money about like there was no tomorrow and  when the bubble burst, shrugging his shoulders and walking away....

*best escape artist*

I'm afraid not. You have been reading too many comic cuts. Nor did he walk away.

...............This suggests that Ross is strictly right.  Public sector current expenditure was 39.4 per cent of GDP 2008-09  (including public sector investment projects it was 43.9 per cent of GDP).

But Labour’s final budget in March 2010 did forecast total spending of 48 per cent of GDP for 2010-11, supporting Kamm.

Yet Ross’s broader point in his article is also relevant. Those using crude spending/GDP ratios as a stick with which to beat Labour’s financial record need to recognise that those ratios were just as elevated in the early years of the Thatcher government. As the chart shows, Total Managed Expenditure in 1980-81 was 47%, 47.7% in 1981-82, and 48.1% in 1983-84. Did Thatcher go on a spending splurge too?

And Kamm’s observation that Brown’s spending as a percentage of GDP shot up “even though the economy was growing briskly” rather glosses over the fact that, as Ross emphasises, in 08-09 Britain experienced its most severe recession since the Great Depression. If GDP slumps and a government allows the automatic stabilisers to take effect, spending as a percentage of GDP is bound to shoot up.

As for the main argument of Kamm’s article, that the Bank of England should raise interest rates to head off the risk of a 1970s wage-price spiral, that is like calling in the Fire Brigade to hose down a house one is trying to thaw out for fear that, some day in the future, it could catch fire.

Agreed and now he is doing a cracking imitation of the invisible man

The man who would be king.

Hardly!  Or mebbees you lot don't read a cross section of the media...... or tweet.

Is that what he's resorted to?

Still a rare sight by any ( Ex-PM) standards.

He was gonna show Blair how it should be done.

And he did  

Bless.

So leading his party into an election, insisting on staying on to lead the nation out of recession and not stepping down despite numerous plots to undermine him is 'shrugging his shoulders and walking away...'?

'Flinging money about' is just a bit of crude spin invented by the Tories to blame Labour rather than the bankers.  After all, the Tories wholeheartedly supported deregulating the banks and pumping hot air into the property/credit bubble, so they're not going to want to blame that, are they?

Labour spending was not remarkable - a bit high at times but nothing the Tories haven't equalled.

He was spanner.

Non-elected , two years of charm and out.

Machiavellian spanner at that!

The Tory media subscribes to the view that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes perceived to be the truth.

Tory supporters who insist that the Tories cut the national debt and always balanced the books when they only balanced the books for three years in eighteen, one less than Tony managed.  "Didn't mend the roof when the sun was shining", "Spending spree", "Maxxed out the nation's credit card" and the favourite - dumbing down the economic debate so it can be neatly summarised by the logic of a household credit card.

We don't have presidential system.  Dave is unelected.  The Tories didn't win the election - when Brown was PM the Labour Party had!

We don't need media.

He was a plum.

And take a wild guess who let them win.

That's his defining moment.

History.

But they didn't 'win'!

I think you do!

Labour didn't lose?

Nothin like a die hard   

Do you admit Broonie lost the last election?

The last election wasn't won by anybody. Personally, I disliked Brown as a PM, but I had a lot of time for him as Chancellor. I'm die hard enough to still lay the blame of the decline in this country at the feet of 'She who would not turn' and didn't recognise a society. No coal, no steel, no manufacture. The tories destroyed this country a long time ago. Not Brown in his short time in office and it will take a braver man than 'call me Dave' to start investing, ie. spend a bit.

Don't kid yerself.

He  lost it.

totally agree with this Cologne 

I'm not a die hard socialist, I just believe in a fairer society and we'll never have one with 21 millionaires in the cabinet and most of those didn't earn it through hard work, it's all property and inherited wealth. Brown was well respected on the global stage, whether people liked him or not... and what have we now?    

George Osborne same as dame re socialism -   to me Gordon Brown  at least understood global / basic economics and  i don't feel that depth of knowledge is there now + if you are loaded you cannot possibly understand what it is like to be penniless and desperate or even how/need  to budget

Nah..the last election wasn't LOST.

I'm zipped out round the back.

You put it politer than me Ros...I was thinking more fecking clueless. 

Make that all parties ..... Very few flat cap politicians nowadays

true Baz. more top hat and tails 

And Broonie and economics is an oxymoron.