While Brown is lauded as ‘Chancellor of the World’, Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne is a ‘bloody fool’.

I know the Conservative’s are just playing a waiting game at the moment, waiting for the recession to really start biting the public and watch them turn on the government and to the Tories, but in the mean time the contrast between the words of praise for Gordon Brown and the assessment of George Osbourne by the head of the FSA is too delicious for words.

Of course Osbourne and the Tories have been less than complementary about the FSA in the past but you can only presume the discussion was about the current economic situation. I’d love to know what Osbourne said/suggested to Lord Turner for him to be described thusly.

Oh how times change - After snubbing Brown, now Henry Paulson copies him.

Remember a few weeks back,  in that other era when the ‘Westminster Village’ thought Brown was a dithering dud? Gordon Brown flew to the US to try attach some importance to himself (so the thinking went) as the government tried to force through a $700 billion bailout bill.

Over on our side of the pond, how the press and opposition mocked Brown. He had to beg for an audience with George Bush, and he couldn’t even get a meeting the architect of the US bailout, the US Treasury head Henry Paulson.

Fast forward to this week, and Gordon Brown has been hailed as a ’superhero’ and ‘Flash Gordon’ by the world media (’Just Gordon, I assure you’, was Brown’s response). The man who has just won the Nobel Economics Prize has said the British Government has been far ahead of any other in the Western World in dealing with the crisis, and when asked says everyone else should be copying what we’re doing, ‘The Brown Plan’ as it is being called.

And that’s just what’s happened across the EU. And now this week Henry Paulson, the man who snubbed Brown a few weeks ago much to the delight of Westminster hacks, has presented his own version of ‘The Brown Plan’, apeing the man he wouldn’t even meet in person a couple of weeks ago.

How times change.

Nobel Economics Prize winner lauds Brown as potential economic world saviour

Blimey, what a turn around for Brown, now being hailed as the leader of the government who came up with the best plan, now being adopted by Europe and possibly the USA, in dealing with the credit crisis.

As the Guardian live blog points out, Paul Krugman, the writer of above linked article, has just won the Nobel Economics Prize.

Similar headlines are popping up here and there - Andrew Grice of the Indy mentioned Britain’s legitimate claim to trail blazing at the moment, but we’ll have to see how it pans out.

Always worth remembering however, is the bottom line for Labour supporters:

18 months until an election.

15 points behind in the polls.

Cameron more popular than Brown.

Voters rarely vote a government back in during or immediately after a recession.

 

A fourth victory is still a long way away. Brown’s more enduring legacy may be rescuing the banking system, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the voters will thank him for it.

Cameron gets clunked by Gordon’s great big fist

At last! A knockout for Gordon Brown today at Prime Minister’s Questions. After months of dancing and dodging Cameron finally had to plant his feet firmly on the ground and face the Prime Minister on the issue of policy alone, and not surprisingly, he came away looking uncomfortable and distinctly lightweight against the far more experienced and confident Brown.

In fairness to Cameron he had an almost impossible juggling act today in trying to appear statesmanlike and offer all-party support while simultaneously holding the government to account. However he has only himself to blame for the endless U-turns and knots he has tied himself up in over the past few weeks, doing Brown’s job for him in marking him out as a politically vacuous lightweight who can’t be trusted on anything.

Lately Cameron and George Osbourne have done so many U-turns over their economic position they’re in danger of smacking themselves in the face with their own arses.

For anyone watching, the biggest problem for Cameron was the obvious delight his every word was greeted with by Labour MPs, who couldn’t believe their eyes and ears to see and hear a Conservative leader condemning city bonuses and demanding the government hold these city bosses to account.

The problem for Cameron was that on a day the government was offering a £500 billion bail-out, city bonuses seemed quite irrelevant and merely allowed Brown to expound on the myriad of things the government are doing to help the economy, all of which came across as more important than the matter of city bonuses.

Constant ridicule was bad enough for Cameron, but Gordon saved the best till last, and delivered the clunking blow to Cameron we’ve been waiting so long for at the end of their debate.

All through the session Cameron had decided to stick with the city bonuses line, probably desperate to be seen on the side of angry families rather than any real desire to see them punished, and unusually for someone as deft on his feet as Cameron, setting himself up perfectly for Gordon’s clunking fist to knock him for six when Brown quoted Cameron on his appearance on the Andrew Marr:

What you won’t hear from me this week is sort of easy, cheap lines kind of just beating up on the market system, bashing the financiers.

The howls of derision and laughter from the Labour backbenchers must have been sweet music to Gordon’s ears after the troubles of the summer, and a dangerous reminder for Cameron at how exposed he has made himself by twisting, turning, manipulating and u-turning over the economy and the banking crisis, the one issue set to dominate the political scene from now until the next general election.

‘A Dear John’ (Rentoul),

Actually this isn’t a ‘Dear John’ letter at all, but I read John Rentoul’s latest on the Indie and it’s really annoyed me, and for want of a better headline, I’m sticking with it. Any better ideas on the back of a postcard to the usual address.

The thrust of Rentoul’s latest piece is that Brown’s reshuffle is a gimmick and not ’serious politics’. Rentoul is a self-avowed uber-Blairite, so it’s quite funny in one sense that he’d be so critical of the return of Mandelson but he reserves his biggest criticisms for the failures of the government at large.

Reshuffletasticular! The Aftermath

Well nothing much else happened, as I predicted, once you have the money shot at the start it tends to drift off limply. Still, nice to see Beckett back even if it isn’t as a full member of the cabinet.

Funny there isn’t anything for Cruddas given that he’s been widely tipped…I wonder if he was offered something he didn’t want (ie anything other than housing) and turned it down again. More fool him if he did.

I’m not sure I understand some of the moves. Flint to ‘Europe Minister’? Is that a step up from housing or is it a step across or what? Same with Jim Murphy going to Scotland Minister, a role that is nearly pointless and will eventually be merged into a Minister for the Nations. Likewise Tony McNulty has been moved to Work and Pensions, is that a step up or across? Why bother?

Reshuffletasticular!

Who’s have thought that a mid-level cabinet reshuffle could have caused so much pant wetting among the politico’s in Westminster? It’s not over yet though barring any more stunning news we’ve clearly had the big announcement for the day - Peter Mandelson is BACK!

As a friend commented to me, that guy has more lives than a cat. Here are my thoughts on the reshuffle so far:

Mandleson coming back is a stroke of brilliance from Brown. Yes, the ‘left’ will be disappointed but I think in this case we can safely ignore them. What Mandelson coming back means is that Brown has brought in a highly experienced Labour politician to the cabinet. A ‘big beast’ has returned, who is guaranteed media airtime when he says anything. Tying him into the cabinet ensures his loyalty and should also quieten down any plotting Blairites. It’s also showing unity between all strands of the party (stroppy left aside, and Cruddas might come on board yet) and by putting Mandy into the business role is provides an experienced hand to continue the work of John Hutton, who moves into Defence.

I feel sympathy for Des Browne, who was stuck with two jobs and therefore received a mauling for both. However, I think we should now have a Secretary of Nations post (on hold for now so No. 10 is saying) which negates the need for a Scottish Sec, and to be Defence sec I think you need to be much more steely and aggressive, which Hutton is. So it’s a good swap. I’d be interested to know what position Browne was offered, as it’s said he turned down a role because he felt it would be an insult to the armed forces if he left his post to go elsewhere. Frankly I find that bizarre so it might be a cover up for him being sacked or refusing another post outright.

Margaret Beckett is another big name said to be returning to the cabinet though it appears that we’re hearing two differing messages. The BBC hear it will be as a ‘cabinet enforcer’ while the Guardian thinks it will be something else. Either way her return will signal another ‘big beast’ coming back (though she doesn’t rank up there with Mandy, Blunkett, Clarke (arse), etc) with experience and is another good move by Brown.

DEFRA is being split up and a new office of Energy and Climate Change is being created, to be helmed by Ed Miliband. I agree with this too and I’m glad to see E. Miliband move up. I’m also very relieved Benn isn’t being moved out of the cabinet. He used to be my MP and he was never less than brilliant for me and my neighbours, and I thought he excelled as International Development Sec. He remains in charge of ‘Food’ (and Rural Affairs?) which technically is a slight demotion but at least he’s still there. Miliband’s old post of Cabinet Office Minister goes to Liam Byrne, who was expected to get a promotion.

Chief Whip is now Nick Brown, who has been running a parallel whipping operation anyway, so if anything it should just tidy up the messy No. 10 operation, even if he is generally unpopular (not necessarily a bad thing for a Chief Whip). Hoon moves to Transport, which I’m guessing is a bit of a demotion.

That’s all we have now. Blunkett is speaking about the reshuffle on TV so I’m guessing he’s not coming back, which is a shame but perhaps would open Brown to the charge that he has run out of ideas so he is bringing back all of Blair’s old ministers. I’m sure they’ll try this anyway.

Still waiting on news for people like John Cruddas, who was rumoured to get the housing post while Caroline Flint moved to DEFRA, which is now obviously not happening. The thing is when you start with such a surprise you hope there will be more, and when there isn’t it all gets a bit boring. Still, today Brown has stolen the initiative, wiped references to the Tories from the media and dominated the news. This is good, but it will be hard to keep the momentum. It’s rare that a reshuffle has any impact in the long term.

As an aside, the two biggest moves of the day, Mandelson and Beckett, see a gay man and a woman return to cabinet. Match that Cameron! (Joke).

Comparisons between Brown’s fiscal rules and Osbourne’s Office of Responsibility.

Although various people in the media seem quite open to George Osbourne’s idea of a quango charged with overseeing the governments debt and making statements on it (but nothing else), I honestly can’t see past it’s obvious purpose. To convince the public the Conservatives can be trusted with their money and therefore that they’re worthy of government.

Then it struck me, what - really - was the purpose of Gordon Brown’s fiscal rules? The so-called ‘Golden Rule’; don’t borrow more than 40% of GDP and so on. In all honestly, it was a political tool to convince the public he could be trusted with their money and therefore that Labour were worthy of government.

In reality Brown could twist his own rules as much as he liked and it was an irrelevance. In reality the rules were nothing more than a stick for him to beat the opposition with but ended up as a stick for him to be beaten with by everyone else.

And isn’t that what this Office of Budgetary Responsibility will end up as?

Gordon saves HBOS (again)

Shares in HBOS have still been plummeting since the announced takeover by Lloyds, throwing into doubt the whole deal as the company would be worth far less than Lloyds were willing to pay for it.

Last night Gordon Brown stepped in (again) and announced that he was ‘very confident’ the deal would still go through, putting his reputation on the line in backing the deal.

Today people were looking at the markets for a sign that the share value of HBOS would rise with the backing. Nils Pratley (nice name) of the Guardian said that we’d need at least a 10% rise to get the deal back on track and calm the jitters.

Thankfully, on the back of Brown’s backing, they have risen, by 15%. At one point I believe they rose by over 30% before settling back down.

The deal is on, it will go through, and Brown’s been pivotal in making it happen.

‘Budget savings’ and ‘efficiencies’ - New Conservative speak for CUTS! CUTS! CUTS!

Anyone interested in public services will have felt a chill down their spine today with George Osbourne’s announcement that any council that delivers 2.5% rises or less in Council Tax will have it frozen for those two years. He said he expected councils to find this money with ’savings’ in the budget.

As we can now see from Boris Johnson’s administration, as well as general Tory bullshit over the years, any time a Conservative mentions savings, or ‘efficiencies’ it basically means cutting public services and funding.

The reason I say this is partially because governments of either political wing aren’t stupid, and if they felt they could save money by doing something you can bet your bottom dollar they would. Think about it, in government all the departments are wrangling and arguing with the Treasury, trying to get their own pet project off the ground, which requires a chunk of Treasury cash. The pie is only so big and can only be cut so many ways.

Do you really think in a situation like this politicians would be spending their money on needless things? It just doesn’t happen. Sure, some things are brought in with the intention of being good, and turn out to be crap, and these get cut later on when this becomes clear, but in general ’savings’ aren’t just hanging round waiting to be made, they come at the expense of funding and therefore at the expense of frontline services.

For instance, in Bradford the council delivered one of the lowest council tax rises in Yorkshire, around 2.5%. However, to do this they slashed the Mayoral budget among other things, leaving the position without the funding to operate like it used to. Other cuts have been made as well in other areas as far as I’m aware. In fact, it does seem to have been happening for a while. They too seem to have referred to the cuts as ’savings’, check the first paragraph of the editorial here, which quotes the council.

One of the reasons the Tories are doing so well at the moment though, is that they’ve convinced the public they’re not like the traditional Tories of old, they’re ‘new’ and improved, with David Cameron and George Osbourne showing the public this new breed of Tories care about public services. How could a man who sums up his priorities in three letters (NHS in case you were wondering, unless you’re talking about foreign policy in which case it’s ‘Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan’, is there anything this guy doesn’t do that Tony Blair didn’t do first, and better?) advocate cutting services?

For the answer to this I’d guess the best thing we can do is go to the testing ground of New Conservative policy and see what Boris Johnson has been doing in the months since becoming Mayor of London. In the campaign leading up to the London election Gordon Brown accused him of wanting to make cuts to the police budget after he said that he felt there were real ‘efficiencies’ to be made there. Boris Johnson stood up in the House of Commons and insisted the Prime Minister return to the House to rectify his ‘mistake’, as Boris actually wanted to do the ‘exact opposite’. Conservativehome have it on their site if you do a Google search for Boris Johnson, Point of Order.

So now the Johnson administration is bedding in (finally), what situation does the police find itself in? Well Team Boris has announced £12 million worth of cuts across the Greater London Assembly, with the police getting a below inflation rise in funding, which is in real terms a cut. And his Deputy (one the ones who hasn’t resigned or been sacked yet) Kit Malthouse has said that police numbers may have to fall, and the other Deputy Mayor Simon Milton (the power behind the throne) has said the same thing.

So let’s get this straight. Boris explicitly said, recorded on Hansard, that he wanted to do ‘the exact opposite’ of cutting the police budget, namely, increasing it and specifically getting more police officers. Yet within a year of becoming Mayor of London they’ve cut the police budget and are paving the way for cuts in the numbers of police officers, which is exactly what Gordon Brown said he’d do. People claim Brown constantly misrepresents people like Johnson when they say things like ‘I want to make efficiencies’, but Brown isn’t stupid, he knows how a Tory thinks and acts when given the chance, even if the press get taken in.

Let’s hope the public don’t get fooled as well.