Britannia Radio

Heffer tells some good home truths here -  accurate ones too.  It 
only took 24 hours and bad housing figures and a terrible US 
unemployment increase for  yesterday's euphoria to dissipate.

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TELEGRAPH 4.4.09
A 'new world order' is simply fantasy
The international act of posturing was pointless; because despite 
having caused the problem, the political class had none of the 
requisite skills to sort it out, says Simon Heffer.

By Simon Heffer

Those who thought that Dr Goebbels came to an end on a stretch of 
waste ground in Berlin in 1945 have been forced to think again. The 
piece of theatre that concluded in London on Thursday was one of the 
great confidence tricks of our lifetimes. Just getting the 20 most 
important heads of government on the planet together in one place and 
not being unpleasant about each other was, we must concede, something 
of an achievement. But it won't make a blind bit of difference to the 
world's economy.

Nor, I imagine, will it have any effect on the result of the next 
general election. In the months ahead, as thousands more people go on 
to the dole every week, more businesses go under and confidence 
continues to seep out of a system wrecked by politicians, few will 
link in their minds the words "Gordon Brown" and "triumph". I have 
long thought that our Prime Minister was around elevenpence ha'penny 
to the shilling. His fantasy press conference at the end of the G20, 
with his grandiloquent (and preposterous) claim to have founded a 
"new world order", confirmed it.

As I wrote here a few weeks ago, this international act of posturing 
was pointless; because despite having caused the problem, the 
political class had none of the requisite skills to sort it out. It 
also seems that some great issues have been fudged. Is the New World 
Order in favour of a new fiscal stimulus or not? It pains me to say 
so, but I have been impressed by the Germans (with the French hanging 
on to their coat-tails) holding out against recklessly pumping money 
into the economy as Mr Obama and, to a lesser extent, our own 
Government have done. Perhaps it is as well for them that this summit 
was not held a couple of months later, for when the rioting starts on 
mainland Europe with the advent of warm weather, and no devaluation 
of the euro is possible to stop the haemorrhage of jobs, such firm 
principles might be harder to maintain.

And what is this nonsense about an "agreement" to curb the salaries 
of bankers? No one has yet satisfactorily explained to me how the 
salaries of bankers, other than causing justifiable offence to 
shareholders in failed banks, have anything to do with an economic 
crisis caused by a conscious decision on behalf of several big 
governments to expand the supply of money, and to stop proper 
regulation of banks. Of course, when a bunch of politicians turns up 
for a party, none of them is going to suggest that there is any 
political fault behind it, but the G20 took scapegoating indecently far.

Capitalism is not too important to be left to capitalists. It has to 
be left to them. Politicians simply do not understand. They are 
contaminated by a desire to redistribute, and to regulate, to keep 
large constituencies of non-productive voters happy. No politician 
has been more ruined by this, or caused more ruin, than Mr Brown: and 
this week he was still at it. In his drivelling speech on "morality" 
on Tuesday (the absurdity of which would have been exceeded only by 
Lord Rumba of Rio delivering it) he castigated people for taking 
risks. Capitalism is based on risk. The reward for risk is profit. 
The punishment for bad risk should be bankruptcy. Mr Brown wishes to 
avoid all such extremes, which is why he rails against capitalists, 
and bails out pointless banks with our money. Let him bask in his 
"triumph" while he can, for he is very near the end of the plank.

Roosevelt's New Deal failed because it hindered people from helping 
themselves. This welfarist event this week risks making the same 
mistake on an international scale, with its £1 trillion slush fund 
for wrecked economies. The politicians have left the stage, thank 
God. Now let us hope they stay off it for as long as possible, and 
let the people who can sort out this mess get on with doing so - 
whatever the risk entailed.