Britannia Radio

TELEGRAPH   10.10.08
Gordon Brown should enjoy himself while he can
    By Iain Martin


This is worth it, isn't it, just to see that funny little grin back 
on the Prime Minister's face. Forget that the price could be as much 
as £500 billion of your money, part-nationalised banks, a melted 
stockmarket, a ruined pension system, a mountain of debt, taxes 
through the roof and eventually an axe being taken to public 
expenditure. At least Gordon Brown is enjoying himself.

The great leader is in his element. The telephone rings off the hook 
as presidents seek his counsel: tell us, mighty recapitaliser of the 
banks, how did you rescue the situation?

The real answer is simple. No degree in economics is required and 
voters are doing the calculation faster than a shameful political 
class that has just returned from a 10-week holiday. You take a large 
pile of money (which you don't have and are forced to borrow or 
print), give it to misbehaving banks, and pass on the resulting debt 
to the rest of us to service by way of dramatically increased taxes.

One hates to be a voice of discord in these times of supposed 
national consensus, but the panic of the bust that followed an over-
exuberant boom has made many of those involved light-headed. The PM 
should not be revelling; he should be showing some humility and 
accepting a share of the blame. His almost pathological inability to 
do either is not a source of comfort: it is profoundly disturbing.

While the eventual outcome will not, I suspect, involve gratitude to 
Gordon Brown or any other politician, it will include public 
revulsion at the largely Labour political class that brought this 
country so low. The search will be on for those most worthy of blame, 
and near the head of the queue will be the current PM.

For now, he is having a marvellous time. As Frank Field MP noted 
yesterday, Brown is back doing what he enjoys: being Chancellor. 
Rarely happier than when he is spending vast quantities of other 
people's money, even he has never enjoyed a splurge like this one.

He appears to have the Conservatives on the run, too. Having promised 
a bipartisan approach in the national interest, the Tories are 
starting to suspect the deal will not be popular with the nation. 
They are studying it closely and considering sheering away from their 
original position to instead "stick up for the taxpayer", as an aide 
put it. That - defending the taxpayer - is a novel idea, one that has 
not yet caught on in modern Britain.

All in all, the media narrative - that dread Westminster word - tells 
us that Brown's bail-out has "altered the terms of trade" and events 
have put him "back in the game".

The terminology is instructive, particularly the use of the word 
"game". When voters see endless red ink spilled and start to feel the 
pain in an economy probably already in recession, there will be no 
thoughts of this being a game. This is real.

And still voters have heard barely a squeak in the way of questions 
about the advisability or otherwise of what is being done. Is the 
bank bail-out the right deal for Britain? One hopes so, although how 
could any taxpayer judge reasonably whether or not it is? The two 
groups who brought us this crisis - the bankers and politicians who 
built their businesses and election wins on a debt bubble backed by 
asset prices that would apparently rise in perpetuity - tell us to 
calm down as they have fixed the problem. Having been wrong first 
time, what makes them right now?

Of course, it is to be hoped that they are, and we must pray for the 
return of that elusive fuel of liberal capitalism - confidence. Yet 
if this deal is as good as its advocates contend, surely it can 
sustain a little prodding in the name of transparency. If it cannot, 
why not?

Traditionally, such sustained probing would have been the 
responsibility of Parliament in an emergency late-night session. Not 
any more. Labour MPs whooped when Brown slapped down David Cameron at 
PMQs on the question of bankers' bonuses. But Cameron is with the 
grain of public opinion here and had asked one of the few proper 
questions to get any attention: will those working in bailed-out 
banks get any bonuses? [A report today says that bonuses totalling 
£3,5 bn are being prepared right now compared with £13.5 bn last 
year- cs]  If the Government failed to secure assurances that the 
answer is "no, of course there will not be a single bonus", it will 
be difficult to control the firestorm of public protest. As long as 
we are paying through our taxes for rescued bankers, they had better 
get used to the idea of relying on something called a salary.

Do we really plan to give Barclays a possible £3 billion when it is 
committed to paying in excess of £1 billion in bonuses to staff in 
America, from an arm of the disgraced Lehman Brothers it has just 
purchased? A thousand such questions remain.

Perhaps all this will suit the Left and Brown, having extended the 
reach of the state, will be clung to by a grateful public, much as 
the drowning cling to a life raft in storm-tossed waters.

Or there is an alternative potential "narrative". In the years ahead 
there will be unemployment, hardship and social dislocation. 
Borrowing will be higher, taxes will rocket, spending on services 
will fall, and it will have its origins not in the Thatcherite 
mid-1980s but in the past decade of the most reckless financial 
mismanagement. Labour over-spent, over-borrowed and failed to 
regulate adequately.

Brown wants taxpayers to pay for these mistakes and then have us say 
thank you. I don't expect that to have wide appeal.