Britannia Radio

This just about sums it up.   

I thought I’d post this in advance of  
the nitty-gritty to follow.

xxxxxxxxxx cs
========================
TELEGRAPH            13.3.09
Gordon Brown and Bernard Madoff are separated by a single detail –  

Bernie's pleading guilty

Jeff Randall believes that the Prime Minister's mismanagement, which  
has brought us a dysfunctional state as well as financial disaster,  
will prove far more costly than any Ponzi scheme.

What's the difference between Bernard Madoff and Gordon Brown?  
Answer: one has drained fortunes from gullible victims, plundering  
their income and savings to create an illusion of prosperity. The  
other is going to jail.

Mr Madoff has thrown in the towel. His Ponzi scheme, whereby he  
needed to suck in ever greater quantities of other people's money in  
order to maintain a semblance of competence, collapsed under the  
weight of undeliverable expectations. Nobody knows for sure how much  
has gone missing, but Wall Street scribes are calling it a $65  
billion fraud.

Not bad for peddling fresh air. It is, however, a nickel-and-dime  
swindle when set alongside the 12-year con trick perpetrated by Mr  
Brown on British taxpayers. That, too, has been a form of Ponzi, but  
with many more zeroes and little chance of the mastermind ending his  
days in what Americans call Crowbar Hotel.

The Prime Minister is nothing if not a man of vaulting ambition, with  
a desire for power which, like Macbeth's, "o'er leaps itself". While  
Big Bucks Bernie was snaffling billions, Mr Brown had his sights  
trained on trillions.

Five trillion, [That’s five million million -cs]  to be precise –  
that's £5,000,000,000,000 – which is how much Labour has taxed and  
spent since it came to power. In 1998-99 its Budget was £333 billion.  
By 2008-09, the Government's annual expenditure had grown to £618  
billion. Every year, the sums required to shore up the house of cards  
became bigger and bigger. But while the good times rolled, too few  
cared to notice what was really going on.

We await with trepidation this year's stab in the dark. On the basis  
that bad numbers take longer to add up than good ones, it is ominous  
that the Chancellor has put back his annual showpiece to April 22,  
the latest it has been for many years. One fears that fiscal  
discipline has been thrown over the fence, replaced by a confection  
of guesstimates, wishful thinking and spin.

Though the scale of their operations was very different, the sales  
techniques of Mr Madoff and Mr Brown were remarkably similar. Mr  
Madoff persuaded clients that he owned the secret of everlasting  
growth, a way of defying financial gravity. His unique selling points  
were, yes, stability and prudence.

So, while the returns of rivals bounced about in line with economic  
conditions, Mr Madoff kept producing a steady, above-average  
performance. Or so it seemed. He never claimed to have abolished boom  
and bust, but invited punters to infer that, thanks to his genius,  
this was indeed the case.

Over the years, Mr Madoff stretched the credulity of his constituency  
well beyond what a rational man might have thought possible. Those  
who tipped cash into his coffers seemed anxious, in some cases  
perversely determined, not to ask difficult questions. The trompe  
l'oeil was too delicious to be questioned. For a while, fantasy  
economics passed for reality in New York and London.

When the elastic finally snapped, so did Mr Madoff's resolve. Rather  
than conjure yet more elaborate excuses to cover the hole where his  
clients' investments were supposed to be, the old rogue confessed. He  
could no longer bear the strain of living a lie. Coming clean, it  
seems, was a relief.

It's at this point that comparisons to Mr Brown come to an end. For  
not only is there no prospect of the Prime Minister pleading guilty,  
he refuses to acknowledge any aspect of his catastrophic  
mismanagement. It may seem impossible to believe, but Mr Brown, far  
from recognising that he has ruined Britain, still has plans to save  
the world.

The astonishing element of Mr Madoff's magic is that, by all  
accounts, he made the money disappear. Investigators do not expect to  
find it stuffed under a Manhattan mattress or locked away in a  
Panamanian bank. They say that it has literally vanished. One minute  
it was in a Florida savings account, the next it was being propelled  
through the ether and beyond. Whoosh! Mr Madoff's loyal followers  
have been left with a whole lotta nuthin'.

For the victims of Mr Brown, it's worse than that. Much worse. His  
legacy is not an empty box. If only it were that simple. What he will  
leave behind is a dysfunctional state, stripped of sovereignty, up to  
its eyeballs in so much debt that not even our children's children  
will be free from the burden.

The misguided promotion of multiculturalism and open borders that  
marked the first and second phases of Labour's administration will  
continue to undermine social cohesion. Children in comprehensives  
will be handed debased certificates of success, while falling further  
behind pupils in grammar and independent schools. An unfunded pension  
system that is, in effect, an inverted pyramid of unaffordability  
will buckle and crack.

The Prime Minister's shameless blaming of others for this mess has  
been rumbled. Even senior civil servants are spilling the beans.  
Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority,  
pointed to the Prime Minister's complicity in the economic crisis. He  
said there had been "a prevailing mindset of Government and society  
promoting the benefits of credit and asset inflation, notably in  
housing".

Everywhere, there has been scandalous waste. But, as the banking  
system soaks up unimaginable sums, voters are suffering from  
"billions fatigue". They find it hard to put into context ministers'  
depredations of the public purse. When, as happened this week, the  
Public Accounts Committee calls a £500 million information system for  
prison officers "a spectacular failure" and "a masterclass in sloppy  
project management", we are not shocked.

Attempts by critics to stem the flow of government profligacy are met  
with the predictable response from Downing Street that savings of any  
sort will mean job cuts, school closures and an abandonment of  
hospitals. This scare tactic may have worked in the last general  
election campaign, but looks risible now.

On Newsnight, the ridiculous Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary to the  
Treasury, kept a straight face while insisting that the Tories'  
proposed tax cut on pensioners' investments would mean an end to  
Britain's apprenticeship schemes. I mean, really! Who is feeding her  
this claptrap?  [Jeff has missed la Cooper’s technique.  She answers  
any question with a verey short sentence before immediately switching  
into prepared soundbite mode.  You can hear the ‘click’ as the  
machine takes over!  Just check to see if I’m not right -cs]

The Prime Minister's nightmare is that his credibility is crumbling  
faster than the nation's finances. His timing is woeful. Between now  
and the next election just about every indicator of wellbeing will  
move in the wrong direction. Rising unemployment, bankruptcies and  
home repossessions will remind an ungrateful electorate how little it  
owes him.

Bernie Madoff got away with it for so long because his clients wanted  
to believe in reward without risk, something for nothing. He told a  
US district judge: "I'm deeply sorry and ashamed for my crimes. I am  
painfully aware that I have hurt many, many people."

Here, in the Court of Public Opinion, Mr Brown will show no such  
contrition.