The pity is that Brown was never seriously challenged by the Opposition: from the time he started his binge they agreed to match his spending plans. Intellectually, they are almost as bankrupt as he, and even now struggle to offer an alternative.

Posted by Tim Skinner at December 12, 2008 12:36 PM

At least Harold Wilson was honest about devaluing the pound: he didn't attempt to repeal the section of the banking act that requires the Bank of England to publish (amongst other things) the quantity of new notes printed that week!

Posted by Graham Smith at December 12, 2008 06:20 PM

Agree but what are the Tory party doing to highlight Labour's crass policies. There are so many opportunities to counter Labour YET nothing is said. perhpas its because most of the politicians will remain in jobs or move to the HoL and the rest of us will endeavour to remain in a job

Posted by yarnesfromhorsham at December 13, 2008 01:19 PM

To a degree, the Brown Labour government is actually the Callaghan one in reverse.

At some point the earlier government realised that it couldn't spend its way of its problems.

Callaghan said in 1976 It used to be thought that we could spend our way out of unemployment...that option is no longer available [exact wording may be incorrect]

That Labour government fell when it lost the confidence of its client groups - the trade unions. The result of cutting spending.

Posted by TDK at December 15, 2008 12:51 PM

The correct Callaghan quote:

We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.

Posted by TDK at December 15, 2008 01:00 PM