Gordon brown

The potentially huge exposure of UK banks in Dubai, depreciating some UK bank share prices again this morning, is a reminder of just how much UK bank lending grew in recent years. The above chart shows the growth in external claims of the UK owned banks around the world over the past decade. The sums lent almost quadrupled to nearly $4 trillion in 8 years.  Anyone interested in discovering which bubbles the UK banks (and now taxpayers) have funded can find the data on the Bank of England website – $1.2 trillion in the United States, $125 billion in Spain, $183 billion in Ireland, $50 billion to the UAE/Dubai. Bank

Yep, it’s that time of the year again: the run-up to the Pre-Budget Report, when we hear tales of splits between Number 10 and the Treasury on how they should approach the fiscal mess we’re in.  According to today’s Sunday Telegraph, and going off rumblings on Whitehall, Darling is pushing for a more expansive package of cuts.  Whereas Brown – and Ed Balls, natch – would prefer to emphasise all that investment, investment, investment. In which case, I was tempted to just copy-and-paste a post I wrote last year, on a similar subject, and at almost exactly the same time in the political cycle.  Its point was that stories about

Another good quote for the Brown ‘n’ Blair scrapbook, courtesy of Ben Brogan’s column in the Telegraph: “Only once in the 20th century has a government that won the games survived to deliver them. A change of administration in the run-up to the Olympics might be expected to herald political trouble. Thankfully, David Cameron does not share Gordon Brown’s loathing of what he refers to as ‘Tony’s f—— Olympics’. He is committed to ensuring stability by protecting London 2012’s status as the Switzerland of politics, immune from partisan attacks.” Brogan’s wider argument is worth noting: that the Cameroons think 2012 could be the tonic the country – and their potential

Today’s Times carries a cracking account of all the wheeling and dealing that went on during the EU jobs fair this week.  Here are some of the most striking points that I’ve culled from it: i) Brown rejected advice from Mandelson and other ministers that he should try and secure one of the EU’s financial roles for a British candidate. ii) There are claims that Brown was “persuaded” into accepting the EU High Representative role for Britain by Europe’s Socialist leaders along with José Manuel Barroso. iii) There are also claims that Brown did a deal with the French to get Baroness Ashton appointed, by which a French MEP, Michel

Among a batch of unpopular blogposts, this is the one that will get Coffee Housers to grab their pitchforks and hunt me down. Because I think the appointments of Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy, as president of the European Council, and Britain’s Catherine Ashton, as EU “high representative” for foreign affairs, are not bad at all. First, I have to eat my words. I thought Gordon Brown would fail to shoehorn a Briton into a top EU job. Credit goes to him and Britain’s diplomats, chiefly Kim Darroch, the UK’s Permanent Representative in Brussels. Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Brown did what he should have done: he pushed Blair

Two Labour figures, two bad news stories.  The first is Tony Blair, and the news that he has given up on the role of EU President – leaving the path more or less clear for the Belgian PM, Herman Van Rompuy.  The second is Harriet Harman, and the news that she faces prosecution for allegedly “driving without due care and attention and driving while using a mobile phone.” The Blair story is significant enough on its own – but throw in Harman, and it’s doubly certain that Brown’s legislative programme will be shunted right off the news agenda.  But isn’t that a good thing for Labour, you might ask, given