It is sort of like watching a gang of seventh graders take down the substitute teacher. That isn't exactly surprising. What made Gordon Brown a great Chancellor of the Exchequer is exactly what makes him an awful PM; the man has the charisma of ground carp. That said, I was expecting a slow fade as New Labour's schtick wore thin, not this spectacular eruption.
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Poor Gordon Brown
08 May 2008 01:20 pm
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Well, new labour appeal rested on 3 pillars
1. Not being the tories of 79-97.
This was always going to be a time limited positive as people's memories faded and the tory party did ,slowly, regroup and change.
2. Tony Blair.
In 97 he was bright,young and new. This faded pretty quickly and he spent most of his Premiership with his approval ratings below 50%.And by the last few years he was a negative for the labour party.
3. The Economy.
Thanks to inheriting a good economy and not immediately messing it up labour was able to maintain pretty good polls even after the first 2 pillars of their popularity were knocked away.
When the economy hit rough times then there was nothing left to maintain support and Brown is too deeply flawed an individual to have as a leader in those circumstances. He's also too deeply identified with the economy to avoid taking the blame.
Result ? Labour has effectively collapsed and the government is now staggering zombie like towards an election which might still be 2 years away with a leader clearly out of his depth and floundering.
Tony Blair spent 10 years taking pins out of hand grenades. Last year he passed the box containing them over to Gordon Brown as they were about to go off...
"What made Gordon Brown a great Chancellor of the Exchequer is exactly what makes him an awful PM..."-MM
Gordon Brown wasn't a great Chancellor. He wasn't even a good Chancellor. When I was over there I often heard him called "the prudent Chancellor". But where was the prudence?
He managed, despite a long period of growth, to turn a budget surplus inherited from the Tories into a large bueget deficit (now 3.3% of GDP, the worst in the developed world). Meanwhile, the tax burden continued to rise as the Chancellor became more and more notorious for trying to fool people with his "stealth taxes."
I can't imagine what reasonable defense one could make for his record. The tax burden rose and government spending rose even faster. Often that spending was utterly wasted (see the NHS, which has seen complaints against it rise even as its budget has swollen).
The only thing I can think of to say in his defense is that he wasn't as bad as old Labor--he didn't nationalize any industries (though he did have to seize control of Northern Trust, after botching his job as a regulator), and he seemed to recognize that some taxes cause less distortion than others.
But really, the British people are right to turn agaisnt him. his record is nothing to be proud of. He was but a piece of driftwood riding the wave a whirlwind named Margaret Thatcher had created.
Given the remarkably illiberal policies of the Labour Government under Mr. Brown, just the two most recent examples of which are the criminalization of possession of "extreme porn" and the upgrading of cannabis from a class C to a class B drug against the advise of its own experts, I have no sympathy whatsoever for "poor Gordon". Granted, these illiberal policies are often a continuation and extension of the policies under Mr. Blair. Still, I would argue that the full responsibility for policies of the government, whether continuations, extensions, or new initiatives rests with the PM (the British version of "the Buck stops here"). I reserve my sympathies for those in the UK whose rights have been so greatly eroded, as opposed to a PM whose troubles are mostly of his own making.
Greg
Correction, I meant Northern Rock. Northern Trust is an American financial institution in reasonably good financial shape as far as I can tell. Northern Rock is a UK lender that collapsed due, in part, to Gordon Brown's negligence. It is now under the control of the UK government and might cost the taxpayers billions of pounds.
But yeah, Megan's right. Gordon Brown was just dandy as Chancellor. Higher taxes, more spending, big budget deficits, bank failures... What's not to like?
"He managed, despite a long period of growth, to turn a budget surplus inherited from the Tories into a large bueget deficit (now 3.3% of GDP, the worst in the developed world)."
Well while he inherited a good economy from the tories, to be fair to brown (not something i'm keen to be mind you) he didn't inherit a budget surplus from them.
And in his 1st 5 years,thanks to the strong economy, he got the national debt down to around 29% of gdp ut that has since crept up to around 36% of gdp.
He was a lucky chancellor for the 1st few years rather than a good one,but luck never lasts....
kennyb, you are right. The surplus I remembered came just after the Tories were thrown out. Nevertheless, since 2001 the British fiscal situation has cleary been deteriorating, and any reputation Brown had as "prudent" should long since have been destroyed.
Anyway, you are a much more astute observer of the British scene than Megan McArdle; and this could well be Brown's epitaph:
He was a lucky chancellor for the 1st few years rather than a good one,but luck never lasts...
The country is tired of New Labour. Some of the above comments--that Margaret Thatcher who retired in 1990 is responsible for the successful aspects of the UK economy in 2008 are just too silly to require much more comment. Posterity will give Brown a very mixed report card: many of his blunders have yet to be felt--forcing the Public Sector to be fleeced by private finance, ballooning private debt, growth of the public deficit. Still the Blair-Brown partnership worked very well and dominated the political scene, allowing many progressive reforms on social issues. Despite the 10p fiasco (which was cynical and incompetent), just these people have done much much better under New Labour than their Tory predecessors.
The truth of the matter is that Brown ran a masterful strategic campaign to get the premiership but forgot to plan for what he was going to do when he arrived. One of Brown's biggest problems is that--unlike Blair--he doesn't have a Brown to take of the wonky detail while he can get on with the business of being a PM.
Some of the above comments--that Margaret Thatcher who retired in 1990 is responsible for the successful aspects of the UK economy in 2008 are just too silly to require much more comment.-Chris Dornan
Anyone who doesn't realize that structural changes in the economy can have an effect for decades needs to return to economics 101. Thatcherism made an enormous and lasting change in the British economy that enhanced its flexibility, paving the way for long-run growth. The privatizations, the offer to help people purchase their council houses, the monetary restraint that whipped inflation, the closing of the coal mines--all of these things had lasting effects.
If you can't understand that Chris, then there's not much hope for you. You should stick to Jane Austen and leave economics to the rest of us.
Like others, I wonder why you think he was a "great" Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In particular, I wonder whether you think he has been willing to spend enough on the British military.
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Mercy even for Poo-bah.
Posted by Michael B | May 8, 2008 2:18 PM