Britannia Radio

This is an interesting speculation.  My assessment of Gordon Brown on 
this - and I readily admit I may be wrong - is that he doesn't like 
gambling.

But it's in the nation's interest to get rid of him as soon as 
possible.  This isn't a game,  so what Cameron says isn't as 
important as the overall need to rid ourselves of Brown's monstrous 
conceit and incompetence. Of course if Cameron does as Trevor 
Kavanagh says he is much more likely to win convincingly.  But I've 
now reached the point where I truly believe that purging ourselves of 
the disaster that is Brown is the overriding goal.

xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
===================
THE SUN   15.12.08
Is Gordon set for a quick dash to polls?

By TREVOR KAVANAGH

WILL Gordon Brown risk charges of "cutting and running" with a snap 
February election before the recession really starts to bite? Or hang 
on and claim victory for economic recovery in 2010?

On the face of it, this is a no-brainer.

By the time battered Britain comes up for air we may have 3.5million 
jobless, tens of thousands of bankruptcies and countless repossessed 
homes.

In those circumstances, Labour would be annihilated.
At best, Gordon has a few more weeks to strut his stuff as "saviour 
of world" and castigate the Tories for doing nothing before he is 
found out.

He might not win an early contest, but he would probably save a lot 
more Labour scalps.

So far, polls rate the PM as more economically competent than Tory 
leader David Cameron.

But his claim that he is trying to help while Tories carp from the 
sidelines is sounding increasingly hollow.

He may be doing something, but voters are starting to wonder if he's 
doing the right thing.

Last month's scary £20billion Budget, with its pointless 2.5 per cent 
cut in VAT, has been dismissed as a costly flop.

People are rattled by eye-popping levels of debt, soaring 
unemployment and the collapse of household names such as Woolworths.

The crashing Pound has forced up the price of imported goods and put 
foreign holidays out of reach.

Now Germany is deriding the PM's big spending and borrowing plans as 
"dangerous and crass".  We are burying "a generation" under a 
mountain of debt, warns Berlin.  Some respected economists say 
Germany is wrong and Gordon is right - we need to borrow, spend and 
print money.

But each passing month gives voters time to make up their own 
minds.   Sun readers may have been surprised by Mr Brown's attack on 
banks in last week's interview with Sir Alan Sugar.
"I am angry at the behaviour of banks because we did not know what 
was actually happening behind the scenes," he said.

Nobody can defend the banks. But it was Gordon who fuelled a ten-year 
boom in unaffordable mortgages with his promise to end boom and bust.

It was Gordon who encouraged consumers to borrow on inflated house 
prices to keep us afloat.

It was Gordon whose polices discouraged saving.

It was Gordon who took his eye off bank regulation. Did he never 
wonder how households would repay the ONE TRILLION POUNDS of personal 
debt they racked up as a result?

Maybe he believed he really had invented the perfect economy, with 
permanent growth and low inflation.

But the banks knew 18 months ago they were in mortal danger. The car 
industry could see order books drying up a year ago.

Today, both are bankrupt and screaming for taxpayers' cash.
Others knew this - and said so.

Why didn't Gordon, with his army of informants in the Treasury, the 
City and the Bank of England, see that coming?

The answer is that it didn't suit him. Without the City and the 
consumer - both living on other people's money - Gordon's miracle 
economy was finished, too.

So, if he failed to see it coming, does he deserve another chance?

This is the gamble David Cameron must calculate with care.
He has come off the fence and promised to cut Labour's profligate 
spending.

He warns borrowing now means higher taxes later. Printing cash today 
means inflation tomorrow.

Devaluing the Pound helps exporters in 2009 but risks turning Britain 
into a basket case for decades.

But he needs to say how he will cut and where he will spend.

Unless he SAYS it, there will be doubts whether he will DO it.
For the moment, anxious voters prefer Gordon's promises of jam today 
to Tory warnings of tears tomorrow.

That's why Mr Brown will spend Christmas studying elections past.
The last February election was in 1974. Labour won then - and again a 
few months later.

They limped on through the Winter of Discontent until 1979, only to 
be kicked out after bringing Britain close to bankruptcy.
What was that about history repeating itself?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
HOME SECRETARY Jacqui Smith has been embarrassingly caught fibbing 
about knife crime by UK Statistics Authority chief Sir Michael Scholar.
It was Smith who set terror police on to Tory Damian Green for 
exposing other Home Office lies.
We all knew Labour made up its "official figures". Now we have it on 
the record.
Instead of ordering mole hunts, Ms Smith should install Sir Michael 
at the Home Office to ferret out these facts as a public service.