Britannia Radio

Despite the oddball headline from the BBC the CBI's assessment is 
devastating.  Such is the scale of borrowing predicted that the 
future, when the recovery finally starts, will be stunted for decades 
by the massive debts that Brown-Darling have landed us with.  There 
will have to be both massive cuts in government spending by forced 
changes in policy as well as major tax increases.  Whoever has to do 
this will have a (literally) thankless task.

Even Ed Balls says that it will take 15 years to pay off our debts - 
just time for the public to get tired of paying for Brown's 
austerity, forget the author of it,  and vote in the next Labour 
government to do what it always does in the end, wreck the economy 
again.

Trevor Kavanagh, as always,  gets back to the nitty-gritty in his 
usual trenchant style.

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BBC ONLINE      16.2.09
CBI warning over recession cash

The CBI predicts household spending will fall 2.7% this year

The government will have to borrow £100bn more than anticipated 
during the recession, the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) 
says.

The figure is among dire predictions it makes about the UK economy in 
2009.

The CBI says that the economy will contract by 3.3% this year, 
compared with its previous forecast in November that it would shrink 
by 1.7%.

The CBI predicts there will be 2.9 million people unemployed by the 
end of 2009, topping three million in 2010.

'Deep recession'
It adds government borrowing will be £148bn this year, well above the 
£118bn Chancellor Alistair Darling expects.

The Treasury expects borrowing to fall in 2010 to £105bn, but the CBI 
predicts it will rise again to £168bn.

"Given the rapid contraction in global economic activity, and the 
continuing credit squeeze, we believe the UK will be mired in a deep 
recession for the whole of 2009, lasting six quarters in total and 
accompanied by a significant rise in unemployment," says CBI chief 
economic adviser Ian McCafferty.

"You would have to go back a long way before you found a deficit as 
high as 10% of GDP. In recent years we have seen deficits of around 
the 3% mark as being strongly sustainable," he said.

People worried about losing their jobs are likely to cut back on 
their spending and the CBI predicts household spending will fall 2.7% 
this year and another 1.2% in 2010. Businesses are also expected to 
cut the amount of money they invest.

The CBI says it does not expect the Bank of England to cut interest 
rates much further than the current rate of 1% - the lowest in the 
bank's history.

It expects the "speed and severity of the recession" as well as the 
drop in energy prices and the recent VAT cut, to push inflation well 
below the bank's 2% target

In spite of all the gloom, the report predicts that spending will 
stabilise early next year with the recovery growing through 2010.

Liberal Democrat economic spokesman Jeremy Browne said: "Alistair 
Darling's forecast that the economy would start to grow again in July 
never looked very plausible, and now looks absurd.
"Government borrowing inevitably rises during a recession, but 
Britain now has a serious structural deficit due to Gordon Brown's 
mismanagement of the public finances.
"Instead of ineffective measures like a temporary VAT reduction, the 
government should be helping the economy through green infrastructure 
projects and permanent tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes."
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THE SUN  16.2.09
Brown took risk ... he must pay for it

By TREVOR KAVANAGH

WHY is Gordon Brown still Prime Minister?
After the events of last week, why has he not resigned? And if he 
won't go of his own accord, how long before he is hounded out by 
voters whose homes, pensions and jobs he's put in peril?

After all, he sacked his multi-millionaire banking pal and key 
adviser Sir James Crosby the moment he was exposed as a dud.

Yet Crosby's offence - destroying bank giant HBOS - pales by 
comparison with Mr Brown's sins and omissions.

The career of Sir James, knighted by the PM and handed a top job at 
the shambolic Financial Services Authority (FSA), is a mirror image 
of Gordon's.

Sins ... Gordon Brown
He was the bullying intellectual powerhouse behind the spectacular 
rise and fall of HBOS.
He ruthlessly exploited weakness in his opponents and brooked no 
criticism.
And he ignored warnings from his own whistleblower that he was taking 
too many risks with other people's money.

Crosby pressed ahead regardless, leaving HBOS a crippled wreck and 
taxpayers with the £17billion tab for his reckless incompetence.

How did he land HBOS in such a mess - leaving Britain needlessly 
exposed to the worst of the world's economic meltdowns?

Sure, this recession is global. Yes, it started in America.   But 
there are many countries, unlike the UK, where prudently regulated 
banks will still be standing when it's all over.  We'll be paying 
huge bills long after everyone else has pulled out of this slump.

The seeds were sown by Mr Brown on his first day as Chancellor, when 
he handed the Bank of England control over inflation - but took away 
their role as City watchdog.

In a fatal error, he shared out that task between the bank, the 
Treasury and the new but toothless FSA. Nobody was in charge of this 
clattering train.

Bank governor Eddie George  [the previous one -cs] warned Brown was 
putting the economy at risk of "systemic failure" - bank jargon for 
"boom and bust".  Like Sir James Crosby, the Chancellor ignored him.

Instead, he threw open the casino, welcomed the biggest losers in UK 
banking history - and gave them our money to play with.

Tories accuse Mr Brown of failing to fix the roof when the sun was 
shining.
It was much worse.

Flames
He demolished the load-bearing walls and propped up the rafters with 
broomsticks.
Why? Because he wanted those City high-rollers set free to make 
billions for Labour's binge on public services.

Even the timid FSA saw the risk. Each year from 2002 it warned Crosby 
that HBOS and other banks were over-lending.

Did Gordon know? Like Sauron in Lord Of  The Rings, the Chancellor 
watched everything that moved on the economy.

In June 2006 - before Northern Rock crashed in flames - the Bank of 
England briefed journalists that High Street lenders did not have 
enough in the kitty to balance their books. Any jolt to the economy 
could bring disaster.

The Chancellor, who received regular Bank updates, would have known 
this far sooner than a bunch of newsmen.

Yet, as HBOS headed for the buffers, he knighted Crosby and made him 
deputy chairman of the FSA... the fox in charge of the hen coop.

When that "jolt" arrived with the credit crunch it was Crosby who 
persuaded Mr Brown to put up £100billion of our cash to bail out the 
banks - including his old firm HBOS.

It was Crosby who urged Gordon to bully Lloyds TSB into a 
catastrophic merger to save HBOS.

Lloyds was Britain's only really solid bank.  [He's forgetting the 
utterly sound HSBC -cs] Today it is just another wreck, dragged to 
the bottom by the dead weight of HBOS.

Thanks to Gordon Brown, taxpayers face losses and liabilities worth 
countless billions. Take in the Royal Bank of Scotland and the sums 
escalate into trillions.

Co-conspirator Ed Balls predicts we will be paying that off for the 
next FIFTEEN years.

If that's true, today is not a moment too soon for Mr Brown to say 
sorry to the British people.
And walk out of Downing Street for good.