| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Giles says Brown is not like Stalin | |
| Posted by: | David Giles | |
| Date/Time: | 18/05/07 18:01:00 |
| Malcolm, I did not say that Brown is like Stalin. I said that a very senior civil servant likened his ways of operating to those of Stalin. I am content to let people judge for themselves based on the facts. I realise that in view of Gordon Brown's lack of positive achievements in so many areas over the past ten years, that his supporters like to praise his early decision to give the Bank of England and the Monetary Policy Committee the power to decide interest rates. It was a good decision but it was an inevitable one. In doing so Gordon Brown was merely following the precedent of many other major economies including the USA and Germany. It would have happened in any case even if the Conservatives had won the 1997 Election. One of the main reasons why the Conservatives lost the 1997 General election was the attempt- encouraged and supported by Labour and the Lib Dems - to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System in 1992 and its disasterous consequences of soaring interest rates, devalued currency, inflation and economic crisis.By 1997, it was accepted by most economists and even by most politicans of all parties that it was wrong to allow politicians to set interest rates. It was particularly important for Gordon Brown,as a Socialist Chancellor, to divest himself of this power because the international financial community and the City of London were rightly extremely suspicious of any incoming Labour Government committed to retain the power to set interest rates.If he had not done so, the election of a Labour Government would have led to higher interest rates, a weakened pound and high inflation and a flight of capital from this country- as happened under all previous Labour Governments. Gordon Brown, as a historian, at least had the intelligence to undertand that - even though as has become painfully obvious since then that he has lacked the understanding of the economy and the markets that a truly successful Chancellor needs to have.He has not been a good Chancellor and he will be an even worse Prime Minister than Tony Blair. |