Gordon Brown: A Lying Incompetent

Gordon Brown is again talking about a recovery in the economy. Man, those green shoots are certainly taking their time in blooming into something more useful. But this being Gordon Brown, he can't resist the opportunity of announcing good news in tandem with a jibe against the Tories:

"Don't risk it with the Tories whose obsessive anti-state ideology means they can't see a role for government in either recession or recovery"

It is just plain nonsense to accuse the Tories of having an "anti-state ideology". It is a startling mis-representation of the Tory position to say (as Gordon Brown effectively does) that the Tories see no place in the economy for the government. You know this, I know this, the Tories know this and Gordon knows this. He is simply showing his naked political opportunism once again. He is interested in saving the country from recession, but he is just as interested in his attempts to alleviate the suffering of the people being an opportunity to give the Tories a swift kick in the balls.

Still, there is a wider issue with what he is saying. Now, I'm not quite anti-state, but I am certainly wary of state intervention. And I do have to say that the Brown administration stands as a stunning rebuke to those who would argue that the state has to have a role in a recession and/or recovery.

Brown has spent money like it is going out of fashion. And what do we have to show for it? Other governments - despite the promises of Gordon - are coming out of recession before us. The state owns banks, which are the poorest performers and least efficient organisations in that sector. We have businesses still going under, and we have growing unemployment lines. The schemes set up to alleviate some of the symptoms of recession for the people do not reach their target audiences in a timely fashion, if at all. Brown hasn't shown that a government can spend their way out of a recession. All he has shown is that a government can use a recession as a reason to spend terrifyingly huge sums of money without any real opposition.

And if we are moving towards recovery, then it is worth noting that the spending policies of our Prime Minister are going to have an impact on that recovery. And on the country as a whole. Brown's Viv Nicholson approach to the recession has left this country not only unable to pay for any further economic stimulus packages, but also for other fundamentals. Like, say, equipping an army fighting in the hostile environs of Afghanistan. Furthermore, the extent of the recovery is going to be stifled, if not suffocated, by the tax burdens that almost certainly will come given the massive borrowing of Gordon Brown. In a sort of sickening irony, Brown's attempts to create a recovery may damage that recovery. If not provoke another recession.

So there we have it. Brown. Wrong on the Tories. Wrong on the recession. Wrong on the recovery. And bankrupting the country to boot. Remind me, why is this man still our Prime Minister?