Prime Ministers Questions was yet another example of the Punch and Judy style of politics that is so prevalent today. It is reminiscent of two schoolboys arguing over who’s dad is bigger or stronger, yet, these grown-up children in Parliament are the very people we are supposed to rely on to represent our interests. We are slowly becoming a laughing stock as our politicians consistently fail to represent our interests, whilst many are guilty of taking the public for a ride in terms of their expense claims. Even the Ayatollah Khamenei believes that he is entitled to sit in judgement of the people of this country based on his views of our political leaders.

Yesterday, Brown and Cameron swapped blows regarding the level of capital spending in the UK over the coming years. Brown is quite clearly guilty of a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. It is self-evident that capital spending is being reduced, even if this is as a consequence of this government bringing forward capital projects from future years, which inflates the current spend, but has the effect of reducing the amount available in future years. Some would argue that this is quite a reckless policy, especially given Brown will almost certainly not be in power when someone else has to deal with the fact that there is nothing in the kitty. Mind you, that has become a fairly common trait with Labour government, their spend, spend, spend policy invariably leaves a Conservative government to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, whilst Cameron has Brown on the ropes, he lacks the courage to state the bloody obvious and that is, we have no choice but to reduce public spending. Tax receipts are down, public sector spending is out of control, the economy is contracting and more and more people are becoming an economic liability, rather than an asset as a consequence of increasing unemployment. I would have more respect for David Cameron if he was to demonstrate that he has the courage and moral rectitude to come clean with the public. Instead of highlighting Brown’s lies ( after all we all know that he is a stranger to the truth), Cameron ought to be outlining why there is a need to reduce public spending and how they intend to do it if elected. Instead, he is allowing Brown to dictate what the “10% Tory cuts” amount to, using the classic New Labour trick of emotional blackmail, less for pensioners, less for the NHS, less for the Police etc.

Apart from the fact that most people already understand that we are in for a tough few years, Cameron also has the OECD stating that the Treasury figures for the UK economy are at best optimistic, but more likely completely wrong. He has the rating agency Standard & Poor making veiled threats to reduce the UK Plc credit rating unless the government gets it’s house in order and puts in place a concrete plan to reduce public debt. And, now, he even had the governor of the Bank of England stating that “scale of the deficit is truly extraordinary” and usggesting that the government should be more ambitious with their debt reduction plans. In other words, Cameron has some very powerful people or organisations supporting the notion that our economic situation is dire and we need to reign in public spending, yet he still lacks the courage to take the bull by the horns. It is this lack of backbone, even when the odds are in his favour, that leads me to doubt Cameron’s ability to offer the strong leadership this country needs to get itself out of the mess created my New Labour’s social engineering project.

Apart from public spending cuts, there is also a need to look at whether we are getting value for money from our public services. For example, in spite of the fact that we have record numbers of police officers, the number of front line bobbies (I have excluded PCSO’s) is but a tiny fraction of the 156,000 officers that are employed. Crime is rising not falling and police openly admit that they consider their job to be the investigation of crime, rather than the prevention.

The NHS has received a massive increase in spending. To fund this all UK workers were surcharged an extra 1% on their entire earnings and employers were charged an extra 1% of their wage bills. This added £billions every year. This burden on employers and employees will increase by a further 0.5% shortly. Yet, in spite of the enormous amounts raised to invest in the NHS, new build was financed using PFI, a hugely expensive way of funding new hospitals, and much of the money went into higher wages, not improved services. Now that the NHS have identified that there may be a real term reduction in the NHS budget, we are threatened with ward closures and increased waiting lists. In other words, the NHS are holding us to ransom, instead of investing the money wisely, they simply spent it. There is a subtle difference in my terminology, but a huge difference in practice.

Take the money being wasted on spy databases. £billions have been committed to IT infrastructure projects, most of which have not been thought through, many have contracts that amount to a blank cheque in terms of costly overruns and to be frank, most are simply not needed. This is not a wise investment of our taxes at a time when the country can least afford a spendthrift policy. It is also worth noting that many of these contracts do not benefit UK companies.

The list goes on and on. That notwithstanding, it is so bloody obvious to most people what we need to do, that to tell us different is patently insulting. Unfortunately, our politician’s still believe that we are not grown up enough to be able to handle the truth, so instead they either lie to us, or avoid being candid. My message to politicians of all parties is to stop treating us like idiots. They must tell us how they see the situation in unambiguous terms, what they believe needs to be done and how long they expect the pain to last. They must tell us how they will ensure that we get value for money and what they will do to ensure that tax increases are only be considered after all other areas have been exploited. If the people of this country and its politicians are not to be looked on by other countries as a bit of a basket case, then we need a man (and a party) with a plan.

New Labour has brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy and yet, even now, when everyone else can see it, they remain in denial. How on earth can any pollster find people that are daft enough to believe that Darling and Brown are best placed to get us out of this mess? Never have I felt such utter despair. Up and down the country, people are having to tighten their belts and reign in their spending, only then can they hope to get themselves out of debt or survive a period of reduced income. Ask anyone and they will tell you this is simply commonsense, anyone that is, other than a ‘New Labour’ MP or the recipients of New Labours redistribution of taxpayers money. New Labour believe that they have discovered the secret to dealing with reduced income and spiralling debt, just borrow more! If that were not enough, they elect to lie to themselves and their masters, by suggesting that things will get better by the end of this year and by 2011, we will be in the money again as a consequence of a boom, the like not seen since the ’dotcom era’.

Our government tells us that the economy will shrink by 3.5% this year, whereas the International Monetary Fund suggests that it will be 4.1% and the the Centre for Economic and Business Research, 4.5%. Even taking account of the Governments hugely optimistic and unlikely forecast, they will have to borrow £175bn this year. In my view, the governments forecast is a lie and I believe they know it is, but rather than give it to us straight, they would sooner treat us like idiots. If the governments figures are wrong and most economists believe they are, then borrowing will be even higher, something our government, your government, doesn’t want you to know until it is too late to do anything about it. Even when it was announced that the economy shrank by 1.9% in the first three months of this year, the government still insisted that their figures were accurate, in other words, we (the government) are right and everyone else is wrong. Early estimates suggest that if the IMF figures are more accurate that those of the Government, then borrowing will increase by around £30bn per year, no wonder this Government doesn’t want us to know the truth.

Next year, the government is forecasting growth of 1.25%, yet in spite of this, they still need to borrow another £173bn. Once again, others, such as the IMF, suggest that the growth figures are vastly optimistic, suggesting instead a contraction of 0.3%. In spite of this, the government then tell us to expect a dotcom like boom in 2011, with a forecast growth figure of 3.5%. Utter fantasy, but even with this spectacular figure, the government will still need to borrow £140bn. Followed by £118bn in 2012 and £97bn in 2013. In other words, even taking this governments completely unrealistic contraction and growth figures, we still need to borrow more than £700bn over the next 5 years. Even to a Cabinet simpleton, this has to indicate that we, as a country, are living well beyond our means. It is also worth noting, that even before the property slump and the recession, we were still borrowing well in excess of our income, with further fancy footwork taking place to move other government debt, such as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) off the government balance sheet. So, no matter what Gordon Brown will have us believe, we were heading for a fall even without the recession. If he denies this then he is either a fool or a liar..perhaps both! We must not be surprised that this government is lead by liars either, after all, it was they who made a manifesto commitment not to raise the higher rate of income tax and they who promised a referendum on the European Constitution and then denied us the right by falsely claiming that the renamed treaty was not the same. Two manifesto promises, two out and out lies, why should the electorate ever trust any party again over manifesto promises?

The government has decided that anyone earning over £113,000 per year must lose all of their personal allowances, which will cost them around £50 per week and anyone earning over £150,000 per annum, will face a tax rate of 50% on all earnings above the threshold. This governments justification is that these people have gained most during the boom years and should, therefore, pay more now. The truth is somewhat different. Over the past 11 years, the people that have benefited most from the boom, in relative terms, is the lower paid, funded in no small part by those on middle and higher incomes. This was as a direct consequence of the governments programme to redistribute wealth. The government has also said that those that earn more must pay more. But they already do. Someone on £113,000 per year pays, in cash terms, seven times the tax that an individual earning £25,000 per year does.

It is also worth noting that anyone lucky enough to earn over £100k per year has not been gifted it, they have earnt it through promotion, success, hardwork and/or entrepreneurial risk taking. No employer would pay someone over £100k per year if they weren’t worth it. It is also worth remembering that these people are resident here, which means that they spend the majority of their money in the UK, therefore, they will be contributing substantially to the economy in the form of other indirect taxes as well as helping to create employment through the purchase of goods and services. The money that the government takes from these people won’t be handed straight over to the poor as they imply, instead, it will be used to plug a huge gap in government finances…which has become something of a bottomless pit. I would sooner have the taxpayer keep more of their money which, if they spend on goods and services, will be the best natural stimulus this country could possible have. If the government could not fleece the taxpayer so easily, they would be forced, as the rest of us are, to ensure that available funds are spent wisely and are only used on what is necessary, rather than desirable.

The bottom line is, that the only way we are going to get ourselves out of this mess is if we reduce our spending, this is basic economics and most 8 years olds could tell you that. Increasing taxes reduces the amount of money in the economy and it is this that will prolong the recession. The government is asking us all to believe that it can spend our money better and more wisely than we can, is there anyone out there, other than those that do not contribute, that would agree with this statement? For those that believe this government has its priorities in the right place, then they should consider the following; According to the government, the increase in tax announced for higher earners is worth up to £7bn per annum, although other experts believe the actual figure is much, much lower, but taken at face value, this tax increase pales into insignificance when set against government spending on databases. The government intends to spend, in spite of the recession, some £105bn of our money over the next 5 years on databases and other largescale IT projects, that is equivalent to over £20bn per year, or half the defence budget. These databases are designed to allow the government to drive a coach and horses through our civil liberties, monitor our every move and spy on our every deed. How can that be a priority at anytime, let alone during a recession, the databases are far from an essential spend?

The government has failed to grasp the nettle of public sector pension schemes which now costs us £2.7bn every year and rising. Even though the government has hammered private sector pension schemes with a tax take amounting to more that £100bn over the past 10 years, they have done nothing to deal with the public sector pensions, where the gross liability has been estimated to top £800bn. This abdication of their duty is simply breathtaking. For those that are not aware and, in the interest of putting things into perspective, 20p in every £ of our council tax goes directly towards funding local government pensions (source: Taxpayers’ Alliance). With public sector pay now above the levels of those in equivalent jobs in the private sector and better job security, little wonder that questions are being asked. Some MP’s have been whining in recent days that they should not be expected to vote for less money in relation to their lavish expense allowances. Why not, the rest of us have not been given a choice?

Alistair Darling noted in his budget speech that there will be £15bn of “efficiency savings”. Note, these are not cuts, but efficiency savings. What I don’t understand is why they have only noted them now, any well run business would have an ongoing programme of efficiency measures designed to save money. If they are genuinely efficiency savings, then the government must hold its head in shame, because that is the equivalent of admitting that this government has presided over a massive programme of excess and/or waste. But lets call a spade a spade, it is not just efficiency savings that are needed, but cuts, real cuts. The Conservatives lack the courage to outline what they would cut, which leaves them open to any charge the Labour government wants to send their way, such as cuts in health and education. They (the Conservatives) should have the courage of their convictions and tell us what they will be, we know they are necessary, but scrapping the ID Cards system, whilst wholly sensible, does not cut the mustard. By contrast, the LibDems have highlighted some 8 or 9 areas they would cut. We all know that the LibDems won’t get enough support to form a government, but based on the fact that they are willing to put their stake in the ground and then fight their corner, they are demonstrating considerably more moral courage and conviction than their Conservative counterparts.

Because I don’t want to be accused of highlighting the problems, but not putting forward any solutions, the following would be my first port of call in terms of saving money. And, for the record, I would not be looking to increase direct taxation, since as I have already argued, the best stimulus this country could get, is the natural one provided by people spending their own money in the way they so choose.

1. Scrap all database/unnecessary IT projects, including, but not necessarily limited to; the Communication Database, ContactPoint, the Travel Database, the NHS Database and the ID Card Scheme. Saving £105bn over the next 5 years. It is worth noting that over-runs on this Governments 8 largest projects total a staggering £18.6bn (source: Times & Computer Weekly). That’s right, this is just the over-runs, not the total cost!
2. Scrap the ‘Tax Credit’ system and return to a simplified tax and benefits system that does not see people pay a higher rate of tax simply so they can fill a form in a claim it back as a tax credit. The same objective can be achieved by using personal allowances and a simple tax system. Minimum savings of £4bn per annum as a result of less fraudulent claims and errors (currently £2bn per annum), plus savings in process and administration.
3. Can local council’s publicity machines, saving £430m per annum.
4. Cancel the Child Trust Fund (Baby Bonds) programme, saving £470m per annum.
5. Reduce International Development Aid budget by half. At this time, we can ill-afford to offer £billions in aid to other countries. Saving of £2.5bn per annum.
6. Close down the Regional Development Agencies that have delivered little, if anything, for businesses in the UK. Annual saving of £2.1bn
7. Reduce funding to the Scottish Assembly, the current ’Barnett Formula’ is outdated and the amount paid allows people in Scotland to benefit from services that those in England cannot, such as free prescriptions and free care for the elderly. This is neither fair, nor equitable. The budget should be trimmed by at least 10% saving £2.6bn per annum.
8. Withdraw automatic right to ’sick pay’ for public sector workers. Savings £1.7bn
9. Reduce the number of consultants used by various government departments by half. Saving £1.5bn per annum. Use the balance to recruit the skills that are necessary rather than pay inflated costs to outside companies.
10. Reverse the increased cost of Quangos in the UK, which has risen by £41bn to £123bn. Saving £40bn per annum.
11. Close tax loopholes which cost the UK Exchequer £8.5bn from High New Worth Individuals, £3bn from large companies and a further £7bn as a result of tax evasion and other activities. Total: £18.5bn

There are, of course, many other areas where our money is squandered, my particular suggestions would save approximately £70bn. Any halfway competent government, or government in waiting, could come up with a set of plans that could easily trim 5%-10% off government expenditure without necessary affecting front-line services. This could lead to savings of up to £60bn per annum. In fact, the European Central Bank found that if the UK’s public spending was as efficient as say, the USA or Japan, we could realise a saving of 16% without any cuts in front-line services, that is a whopping saving of £93bn per year. Throughout government there is duplication, waste, excess and abuse, this area should be tackled well before cuts in essential services are considered and this is what the opposition parties should be focusing on.

Yesterday, David Cameron, in his address at the conservative party conference told us that he was a man with a plan. The generally accepted definition of a ‘plan’ is ‘A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective’. Now, whilst I accept that he may have a plan, his speech was short on detail and therefore, he must either expect the electorate to take him at face value, or he intends to publish more detail in the future. If it is the former, then it is a very big ask, given few, if any politicians have earned the trust of the electorate. If the latter, then I would suggest that it be sooner, rather than later if he wants to be considered a heavyweight, rather than a lightweight.

It was clear that David Cameron wanted to come across as sincere, a man of depth, with honesty and sincerity at his core. Excellent values, but if I may be so bold? David Cameron adds little, when he simply repeats what we already know, that the economy is sliding towards a recession, the government has incurred significant debts and that the overall tax take is on a decline in line with the economic downturn. He tells us that we must fact a period of austerity and that he must make, indeed will make the tough decisions for the long term benefit of the country, “no matter how unpopular” that makes him. Really? Well I have got news for you mate, we have just had 11 years of tax rises and there is no point in the electorate voting in a Conservative government that is promising more of the same, No way sunshine, not in a million years.  

David Cameron may, albeit based on yesterday’s speech this is hardly guaranteed, win the next election simply because so many people are fed up with New Labour. But, if Cameron thinks he will be whisked into Downing Street on the back of tax rises, I think he is wrong. Okay, so he hasn’t said it in so many words, but isn’t that the point, we are all fed up with politicians talking in code, saying one thing and meaning another. However, if he tells us he is going to put up taxes, he would probably need to explain which one’s, by how much, when, and of course, why. So instead, we get coded threats about David Cameron being willing and ready to make the ”tough decisions”. Sorry mate, that doesn’t make you clever, because we could all do that, even Labour. David Cameron doesn’t deserve to be elected on a principle of using higher taxes to prop up government finances, after all, surely a principled man like David Cameron wouldn’t approve if we all went and helped ourselves to more money from our employers pockets and lets face it, there is no difference.

With a bloated public sector employing one in five of the workforce, massive government waste on projects and initiatives that have gone nowhere, or are going nowhere, there is plenty of ‘fat’ that be cut before dipping into our pockets. Much as many of us want to get rid of New Labour, I would urge floating voters not to vote for David Cameron on a mandate, coded or otherwise, of higher taxes. This is because it really doesn’t take a very clever man to increase taxes, in fact, that is the easiest thing to do. Increasing taxes is what we would expect from a novice, a man of little experience and man short on ideas, ability, depth or lets face it, credibility. It takes a real man, or woman, to tackle the reason why so much of our money is needed in tax and that, is what we have come to expect from a conservative leader. There must be a war on government waste and excesses.

I believe Cameron is sincere, but I also believe his personal life is shielded from the real problems of the people in this country. He doesn’t have to struggle paying his mortgage, car payments or utility bills. Yet he meets a couple of people and think he knows what it all means. If I spend 10 minutes observing my car being serviced, does that mean I am a mechanic?

I have said, in the past, that anything is better than New Labour. But if I am honest, a new government, that still believes that they are entitled to increase their tax take from the British public, in spite of the hardship, before knowing how much they could save by cutting government excess and waste, doesn’t deserve our vote.

Think again Cameron….the LibDems have failed miserably for the past 3 or 4 elections because they thought the British public would agree to higher taxes. They were wrong and you are wrong. It is possible that the conservatives will get in because of the significant backlash against New Labour, however, if we know that the conservatives are going to put up taxes, we may just decide that it is better the devil we know and stick with experience.

I have always been a conservative, but I could not and will not bring myself to vote for any party that includes tax increases as part of its commitment, not least because this current administration has left enough fat within government to keep a butcher employed for 5 years without losing any of the meat. Think about it Mr Cameron, get rid of some of your Eton boys and get some real people in to advise you….before you cock it up!

Today, David Cameron provided what, for all intents and purposes, could be described as a ‘presidential’ address to conference, albeit the intention was to address the nation. Although this may described as political opportunism, he did, actually pull it off, at least insofar as to make it look as if the conservatives want to be an ally of the Labour government in this time of crisis, rather than an adversary.

What was interesting was, that Cameron came across as mature, thinking and determined, even though the content lacked real meat. However, he has promised to elaborate on this tomorrow. In his speach, he announced that he was going to drop his party’s minor objection to the current Banking Bill, in terms of who has the final say on the event that the Bank of England needs to intervene to save a bank, the BoE of the FSA, the conservatives originally favoured the former, whilst the Labour party the latter. He has also vowed to support the rapid introduction of further guarantees for savers money.

Finally, he suggested that he would support the government in its endeavours to address the complex issue of “marking to market”, a process whereby banks price daily their assets which, it is argued, is causing bank stocks to fall even further. The proposal is that this practice should be suspended. Quite how this would work, Cameron did not explain, therefore, we can assume that it will be challenging or perhaps, not even possible.

What is perhaps more important, is that the conservatives in general and David Cameron in particular, have, throughout this crisis, remained in the shadows, so to come out and make this type of statement is significant, if, perhaps underwhelming. Nonetheless, what was important was that Cameron emphasised that the conservative party was not a subsidiary of the CBI or the city, two areas where they are seen as possible lapdogs. One other very significant point, was that he made clear, that there must be a day of judgement for the bankers, not now, whilst all this turmoil is going on, but once the dust has settled.

Yesterday, I argued strongly, that the bankers and executives that have presided over this chaos and brought many very powerful, established and well-known companies to their knees, or worse and should be investigated. Further, this should be done quickly, in order that their assets can be frozen, less a small allowance, pending a criminal investigation, which could lead to the permanent sequestration of their assets. [Banking Crisis, a time for reflection and payback]

What I would like to see now, is David Cameron come out further on this issue, by providing a direct challenge to the Labour government to make a commitment, here and now on the issue of their ‘day of judgement’. If the government and other parties want the ongoing support of the public, they must agree to mount criminal investigations, into the actions of the bankers and city executives and they must not allow those same people the opportunity to salt away their assets through uneccessary or avoidable delays.

Well done David, timing was good, the tone was excellent, now you need to keep the pressure on and come up with tangible solutions, because of course, the offer of rapid passage of two acts through parliament is not going to fix things, more, much more needs to be done. Time to turn words into action and if necessary, show the government wanting if they fail to act quickly and decisively.

When the dust settles, governments around the world need to reflect on precisely how a situation arose, where taxpayers were required to bail out struggling banks and insurers. This should be wide ranging and lead to both regulation and prosecution.

It is insufficient in the extreme to state that the stock markets require regulation, the truth is that executives of some of the largest banks and insurers in the world have acted recklessly and in return, have profited through bonuses and dividend payments. They have manufactured products that could be traded for profit, even though 10 years or so ago, these types of trades did not exist, in fact, some are so complicated, that even financial experts and city observers have struggled to explain how they worked.

It must be remembered, that the executives of these banks and insurance companies were charged with a fiduciary duty to look after their shareholders interests and act responsibly. From what I can see, they have created products that allowed them to make short-term profits on traded mortgage securities and the like. In many cases, shareholders have lost everything, many of whom are pension companies, which means that the ultimate losers will be all those that have invested their hard earned money in a pension fund and of course, the taxpayer.

Few can argue, that the actions of many of these top executives has been reckless in the extreme, because previously solid businesses have now had to be bailed, whether through nationalisation or central bank loans. With the position, salary, share options, dividends and bonuses, must come the responsibility. Anyone who has been party to the decisions that have lead to the failure of the business they were responsible for, should be required to forfeit any profits they received.

During these tough times, there is a need for cool heads, particularly from government, but we will come out the other side. The government’s however, must act now, by freezing the assets of all executives who are believed to have been party to this reckless behaviour, before they are allowed to salt away their assets, as they surely will. The public will not forgive government, for allowing these people to protect their assets and avoid paying the price for their reckless behavior.

This is not about starting a blame game, nor is it a witch-hunt, both of which may even be justifiable. It is a method by which government, on behalf of the people, can make clear, that reckless behaviour, for short-term profit, which leads to business failure has a price. In the UK, company directors can already be held personally responsible if they have continued to trade whilst insolvent, based on some of the recent examples of spectacular business failures, it is difficult to see how some of the banking executives could claim that their business was solvent.

Government must use existing legislation to investigate and if necessary, charge reckless company executives. If necessary, they must introduce further legislation to increase their powers in such circumstances, but in a first move, they must seek to freeze most or all of the assets of these failed bankers and their cronies. It does not matter if they have been donors to party funds, politicians responsibilities are to the electorate, not a few failed bankers. The predict, that the first party to promise to freeze the assets of these bankers, pending an investigation, will receive a massive boost in the polls, so even if they don’t do it because it is right, they could try it for the poll boost!

There is an inevitability in politics that your unguarded, or newor that matter your carefully delivered words will come back to haunt you. Here are some of Gordon Brown’s.

During his Labour Party conference speech in 2000, Gordon Brown said “We will not put hard won economic stability at risk. No return to short-termism. No return to Tory boom and bust” and he went on to say “why did the Tory party give Britain twenty years of stop-go, twenty years of boom and bust. It is Labour that is now the party for stability and growth.”

Now we know that whenever anything goes wrong, Mr Brown always blames the “Tory party” or now, he prefers to say that our problems are as a consequence of “world economic issues and the credit crunch”. Okay, for a change, there is some truth in that statement, but that is only a recent phenomena, it does not really answer the question of how we got into this position of boom and bust.

On Gordon Brown’s watch, we have seen house prices rise some 200% (23% in 2003 alone) from 1997 to 2007, we have seen a massive increase in the availability of credit and people have felt relatively wealthy as a consequence of the increase in value of their homes. Easy credit meant that many people could remortgage their homes so that they could buy a new car or go on a fancy holiday. During the same period, 1997 to 2007, average wages rose by just 52%, so it was quite obvious that consumer spending had nothing to do with increased wealth through rising wages.

People were offered interest free credit for car and electronic purchases, 125% mortgages, equity release programmes and would receive credit card offers through the post every day. Because many people considered that the increase in their property value was a one way bet, they continues to borrow, believing that they could release equity as and when they needed to. Experts were telling us time and again that the level of consumer debt was at record levels and wasn’t sustainable. Gordon Brown chose to ignore this advice, in spite of the assurance he gave in his conference speech and on numerous occasions since, that he would not allow a return to boom and bust, what he termed a Tory disease.

Gordon Brown knew that the consumer boom was financed by debt, much of which was secured against property prices, which he knew could be volatile, he know that savings were down and debt has spiralled. But he did nothing, previous governments had put in credit controls to address these issues and risks, he sat there preening his feathers and claiming credit for growth figures, yet ignoring that one day it would all come to a dramatic end. It is unlikely he understood just how dramatic that would be, but he knew it would end up is a “bust”.

Gordon Brown’s relationship with prudence was a mere dalliance, personally, I am at a complete loss as to why political commentators and the tabloid press continue to refer to him as a good chancellor, an iron chancellor or one who places prudence first. At the same time as this country was experiencing an economic boom, financed on credit, he himself was, in spite of the fact that he had increasing tax revenues, on a government spending and borrowing spree. Fancy footwork ensured that the PFI initiatives, which will cost us £170bn between now and 2032, did not end up recorded as government debt, but it is still there and it has to be paid. In the good times he should have been repaying government debt, to place us in a better position when the inevitable “bust” came, he did not, he ignored it and continued to spend.

Rising commodity prices and the credit crunch have exacerbated the problem, but ask anyone with a little understanding of basic economics and they would have told you that the crunch was going to happen anyway, debt financed growth was not sustainable even in dreamland that was New Labour. Gordon Brown inherited, whatever he says, a steady and sustainable economy, he just blew it!

It is also worth noting, that manufacturing in this country has been in decline, yes, even under this government and our economy is heavily reliant on banking and financial services. Two areas that are under significant and sustained pressure. It remains to be seen how this will affect employment, tax revenues and our balance of payment deficits. With many banks and financial institutions making substantial losses, these will transfer, not just into an immediate loss of tax revenues, but, because they can accumulate these losses, a further reduction of tax revenues in the coming years.

Gordon Brown’s economic credentials and reputation for prudence is in tatters and we shall be paying the price long after he has left office.