Saturday 27 February 2010

Mr Brown Borrows From All Our Futures

Reporting on the UK's stellar 0.3% GDP growth in 4Q 2009, The Times identifies

... concerns that this growth had been “borrowed” from the first three months of 2010 as shoppers brought forward purchases to beat the rise in VAT at the end of last year. Economists said this increased the possibility that figures for the first three months of 2010 could be worse than those for the end of 2009

Borrowing from the future ? This is Gordon Brown's entire modus operandi !! - from PFI in the good times, to wholesale pre-election book-cooking on a monstrous scale.

Will Darling feel able to blow the whistle in his final budget ? Your final act in politics, Alistair - what's it to be ?

ND


8 comments:

Demetrius said...

As our local health Trust dissolves into financial chaos, cuts services in major population centres, and turns diagnosis and treatment into a merry go round it is nearly all down to PFI deals. It means that some of us are likely to lose any future we might have had.

Anonymous said...

Look for a March election which will allow the Bottler to bury 1Q data and avoid a budget.

If the early election isn't called it will mean either that 1Q growth is on the cards, or that the Bottler has bottled it yet again.

Budgie said...

Yup, Brown bribes us with money snatched from our children.

Anonymous said...

Blackadder: "Well Baldrick, a good night's work I think. It's time to divide the loot, and I think it's only fair that we should share it equally."

Baldrick: "Which I suppose is highwayman's talk for you get the cash, I get the snotty hanky?"

Blackadder: "No, no. No, we did this robbery together, so you get half the cash.

Baldrick: "Oh, thank you Mr B!"

Blackadder: "This robbery, on the other hand, I'm doing alone. Hand it over! Your money or your life! [...] You see? All fair and above board."

Anonymous said...

Looks like Gordon might get back in!!

Danny

Old BE said...

Demetrius puts his finger on it. Despite all the rhetoric, cuts in public services are being enacted viciously already. Of course this being a Labour government the cuts are not coming from the lardy quangos and cushy non-jobs but the NHS, police services and other frontline places.

Nick Drew said...

yes chaps the pain of all this merges with the destructive effects of Brown's scorched earth strategy that we've banged on about periodically

what a decade we have ahead

Anon@9.30 said...

Demetrius,

My OH works in the NHS in geriatrics.

(in my local area) it never got the same level of funding increases that the rest of the NHS supposedly got.

This may well be because the patient base is made up of old people who are v. ill and are going to die soon anyway - and so do not have the same profile as the other areas.

Cutbacks will mean that these people will die sooner (and in more discomfort) than they might have.

This effect is not easily measurable in hospital stats.
They only count length of stay etc.

However, there will be a lot of pensions that will be paid for a few months less.

So, in a really horrible manner, these things have a way of correcting themselves.