The Iron Chancellor - nothing but rust

I see the government are planning to relax the rules on fiscal prudence so they can try to borrow their way out of trouble (that's coded speak for "cut and run" for the next election). It surely marks the final nail in the coffin regarding the fashionable - if completely wrong - idea that Gordon Brown was somehow a prudent chancellor. His record speaks for itself - an economy built on foundations of sand. I'm going to be ultra-smug here, and tell you I told you so, and if you don't believe me, just wade through my blog where you'll find plenty of posts questioning Brown's self-acclaimed role.

Here's something unfashionable - when the Tories bequeathed power in 1997, they left the economy in a very good position. People tend to forget that Major's government - after an incredibly rocky start - had smoothed things over, and that from 1995 everything was working well with the economy on an upward swing. Brown didn't inherit some kind of mess he had to fix - he inherited a strong position, and then took great pains to slowly erode that position of strength from the moment he took power.

I see a lot of people are complaining about the government's new plan (see here). A couple of comments made me laugh - one about helping the employers instead of the employees for a change (as if business hasn't had enough help already), and the other about the British people being close to "breaking point". I suppose we are - perhaps it does prove we care about the essentials after all, assuming your idea of essentials are money and oil, of course.