 Who said he had put “an end to boom and bust”? asks Peter Lilley MP
Who said he had put “an end to boom and bust”? Who said “I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery”? And who said Britain is best placed to avoid a recession? Of course it was Gordon Brown.
Yet now Brown pretends Britain’s problems are entirely caused by the US mortgage crisis. That is nonsense. It was 125% loans, self certified mortgages and the highest house price inflation in Britain – not US sub-prime mortgages - which led to the collapse of Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley and the need to pump in billions to our high street banks. All these problems were essentially home grown. And they occurred while Brown was Chancellor.
With the return of the master spin doctors – Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell – Brown is seeking to present himself as the solution to these problems. We should not forget that he is the cause.
Nor must we allow the Left to argue that this crisis is the result of deregulation or that it justifies government intervention across the economy. The banking system is, and always has been, a special case requiring special regulation. The government retained adequate powers to regulate both the quantity and quality of lending. It was repeatedly warned that debt problems were mounting. It not only failed to act but fragmented the control of the City among three bodies. I was Shadow Chancellor at the time and we warned that this would lead to paralysis, as sadly it did.
Far from being the Churchill of the present crisis, Gordon Brown is more like Chamberlain – leading us unprepared and ill armed into an economic conflict which he did not foresee and denied would occur. It will take new leadership to steer the British economy through the very troubled times ahead.
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