Finally goodbye, Lord Myners

The wait is over.  Former RBS chairman Sir Tom McKillop’s letter to the Treasury Select Committee has scene the light of day on who knew what when about Goodwin’s pension. Sir Tom’s letter states:

Each element of the proposed terms of departure were discussed with Lord Myners including the pension.

….that he and Bob Scott, the senior independent director, made a "full disclosure" of Sir Fred's compensation to Lord Myners

and

I must emphasise that there was no "elaborate ruse" by myself and Mr Scott to give Sir Fred any more than he was contractually entitled to and that we and, I believe, all the directors acted in what we judged to be the best interests of the shareholders, including the Government.

As Myners has already changed his story and misled parliament, the game is now up for this banker turned politician with no experience of due diligence.

Hopefully Myners will now be unlike any other Minister and take responsibility and resign.

UPDATE: Sir Tom McKillop’s letter

9 more months to spend other people's money

After a public outcry and reactionary pressure from Brown, The Committee on Standards in Public Life has now decided to report on MPs perks by the end of the year.  The committee is headed by by Sir Christopher Kelly, a career civil servant with no commercial expertise.

We have another 9 months to wait for the committee to report and nothing will happen until after the next election.  The private sector would resolve this shambles within days if not a few weeks.  In the public sector it other people’s money, so who cares?  The British public do.

In the meantime there will more embarrassing revelations leading to public ridicule.  This controversy needs resolving now and there is no reason why this shouldn't happen.

Smith should have gone yesterday

 

For the second day running the headlines are awful regarding MPs expenses and allowances.  This is not exactly what Brown wants in the lead up to G20.

Brown showed misjudgement yesterday in not demanding Jacqui Smith’s resignation over her expense claims.  He was behind the curve on whole issue, as it wasn't until last night that Brown announced that he wanted to scrap the second home allowance and replace this with a flat-rate payment for overnight stays.  All Brown is doing is reacting to events rather than setting the agenda on this matter.

To cap a sad day for politics, there are claims that £300,000 is being offered for MPs expense receipts.

There has been too much prevarication over this whole sad business.  It should not need a committee to deliberate for months on end.  As Nick Clegg rightly said yesterday, the three party leaders can met and decide what to do within days.

There is real public anger over this sordid saga which will fester and grow.  Real leadership is now called for to settle the outrageous expenses and allowances that MPs can claim, which no one outside Westminster is entitled to.

There must be no further excuses and delays to putting MPs expenses and allowances in line with normal private sector business practice.  Only when this happens will public trust in politicians begin to be rebuilt.

How Brown will judge success at the G20

Moses was asked at the press conference with Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Prime Minister, what the minimum requirement would be for the summit to be a success and prevent a market collapse, Mr Brown gave a simple answer:

For you to report it as a success.

In other words, any agreements substantial or otherwise will be secondary to the relentless spin that we will all be subjected to on Thursday.

Is Brown now admitting that he has failed to ‘save the world’?

Brown is almost sunk

The Indy has the latest poll which shows no pre-G20 bounce for Brown.  Andy Grice posts this:

Our latest ComRes survey suggests that an overwhelming majority of the British public believes Brown should focus more on a domestic than a global solution. It is bad news for the PM.

So it is almost over for Brown.  Only the budget can save him, but Mervyn King has already poured cold water on that little tactical manoeuvre.

As I have already posted:

If the sleaze stories continue to run, Labour will be saddled with Brown up to the election whether it likes it or not.  No pretender to the crown will want to take over with a mountain of sleaze stories dominating the agenda and Labour being ridiculed.

The failure of the Brown premiership is almost complete.

MPs April Fool comes early

MPs have been awarded a 2.33% pay rise while electors are having their wages frozen or cut.  As a reminder the RPI, which includes mortgage costs, is virtually zero.

It has been revealed that Jacqui Smith claimed £22,948 expenses for her second home in 2007-08.

I have always dreamt about living in another world.

Dave is a clever boy but it is not the point

Rather shrewd of Cameron not to call for Jacqui Smith’s resignation this morning.  It is much better for the Tories to have Home Secretary Smith in place as she will now be ridiculed and laughed at.

That is not the point through, and it certainly isn't just a personal matter for Smith as Brown has just said.  These politicians do not get it.  I have known people in business sacked on the spot for fiddling expenses.

Why should MPs be allowed to buy 2nd homes at the taxpayers expense and then pocket the capital gain?  If they need somewhere to stay in London for a few nights a week, and it would normally only be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, why can’t they stay in a hotel?  After all this is what business people do who travel great distances and work away from home.

Until all the regulations that govern MPs expenses and allowances are eradicated, and they adopt an expense model similar to the private sector, they will continue to be treated with derision and contempt.

Another cynical move on MPs expenses!

Lobbydog is reporting that MPs expense claims will be published on Thursday afternoon.  As he says, this is the day that Parliament goes into recess for Easter.  It is also the day of the G20!

What a contemptuous, cynical, outrageous and scandalous date to choose!

Would Alastair Campbell put up with this?

 

Answer: No

So what does Brown do about this ‘little local difficulty’ at the beginning of the most important week of his political life? 

Whether the invoices were leaked or stolen is a separate issue.  Smith’s credibility is now in tatters.  As Home Secretary she is leading moves to strengthen legislation on the sex industry.  With every public utterance she will be ridiculed and laughed at

Surely Brown has got to close this matter off this morning?

What is the point of ConservativeHome?

Last weekend Tim Montgomerie got his knickers in a twist about the 45p tax rate and what Ken Clarke said about Inheritance Tax.  Then in the week he got himself into a pointless ding dong with Danny Finkelstein over fiscal policy.  Today he blows up the Stuart Wheeler donation to UKIP to something out of all proportion to its actual significance.

Off course Cameron was going to sack Wheeler and has done so.  He was hardly going to do this on the morning he was making a speech in Wales, and when the Jacqui Smith porno scandal was gaining traction.

If Montgomerie wants to cut the Tory lead at the next election to the bare minimum, he is doing a fine job.  What is his problem?  What axe does he have to grind with Cameron?

Stuart Wheeler’s expulsion is well timed

The Tories were right to wait until this evening to expel Wheeler who gave £100,000 to UKIP.  It shows decisiveness that will contrast well with the  Jacqui Smith adult movie saga that been allowed to dominate the media all day.

Labour’s self-inflected sleaze stories in the run up to G20 do not bode well.  The public will now concentrate on this and fail to take Government seriously.  Labour will be treated with derision.  It happened to Major and it is happening again now.  Brown’s biggest problem is that the most important part of his audience, the electorate,  has stopped listening.

On further matter.  If the sleaze stories continue to run, Labour will be saddled with Brown up to the election whether it likes it or not.  No pretender to the crown will want to take over with a mountain of sleaze stories dominating the agenda and Labour being ridiculed.

Labour has defeated itself.

No honour among thieves

What does it take for a cabinet minister to resign these days?

Jacqui Smith has kindly agreed to pay back money after she claimed for 2 adult movies her husband watched when she was out.

Just what is going on in the Smith household?  Not much on the marriage front it would seem.  No wonder she spends so much time in London!

I hope for the Home Secretary’s sake the police are not about to expose some porno crime racket.  That could be rather embarrassing.

It has just been announced that DVD gifts are to be banned from the G20.

Brown’s Sunday from hell

With the overnight news that Cameron will meet Obama on Wednesday, Brown now faces a few other unwelcome distractions on pre-summit Sunday.

1. Hopes of reaching agreement at the G20 over a further stimulus are in disarray after the leaking of the draft communiqué;

2. The Tory poll lead is now 13%;

3. Scotland's largest building society collapses after incurring losses of £26m;

4. Lord Myners, the minister in charge of the government’s assault on tax havens, has used a blind trust to conceal £250,000 of his own money offshore.  Sir Tom McKillop’s letter to MPs challenging Myners’s version of events over Goodwin’s pension has yet to surface;

5. Adam Ingram a Labour former minister, who earns more than £115,000 from outside interests, has failed to declare a family firm that could be used to avoid tax.  On Friday he declared he was leaving the Commons at the next election;

6. The Mail on Sunday launches a petition to demand a full enquiry into MPs' expenses, as another Labour MP is exposed over housing allowances;

7. Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, the Labour peer, is being investigated over his activities as the paid chairman of a private security firm;

8. Labour MP Nigel Griffiths fails to get details of his sex romps silenced;

9. The respected historian Andrew Roberts kicks Brown’s plans for the monarchy into touch; and

10. Jacqui Smith’s husband used her Commons expenses allowance to pay to watch pornographic films.

Is it any coincidence that with Mandy out of the country, there is not much Labour spin in the papers this Sunday?  All is not lost.   The BBC’s Sunday Labour love-in is yet to start.

Was it really 30 years ago?

As I type this I am listening to ‘The Night The Government Fell"’ on the BBC Parliament Channel.  It is marvellous stuff.  I was lucky to be sitting in the visitors gallery for the whole debate.  Highlights of the debate are on now.  What a shame there were no cameras in those days.  It is worth listening just for Michael Foot’s wind up speech.  It was brilliant, and as far as remember he spoke without notes for 30 minutes.

Earlier the programme broadcast Tonight (the predecessor of Newsnight) that came live from Westminster that night.  Being in the House I have never seen this before.  The BBC’s political editor in those days was the sublime John Cole and now we have the ridiculous Nick Robinson.

Those were the days!

UPDATE: I had completely overlooked to mention Gerry Fitt’s speech that swung the debate in the chamber.

Obama’s significant meeting with Cameron

It is very significant that Obama will meet Cameron next week.  As I posted when this was first reported in the US two days ago, this meeting breaks protocol, as Obama is not in the UK on a State visit.

Brown that will be spitting blood at this.  I would love to be in earshot when Moses rings our ambassador in the US to ask what is going on.

I will save Brown the cost of the call.  Obama has been advised that he will dealing with Cameron pretty soon.  That is the only explanation for why this meeting is taking place.

Is HMQ also having doubts about Brown?

What was odd about Mervyn King’s ‘private’ audience with the HMQ was that it should have been publicised.

Even stranger that a picture was issued to the press after the ‘unprecedented’ audience.  No pictures have ever been issued before of HMQ’s private discussions.

Role on a few days and Brown reveals all from the other side of world about his plans to change the rules of succession to the throne.  Then today the Mail chips in saying HMQ is not amused with Brown’s latest half-baked idea.

What is interesting is the article has this quote from Nicholas Soames, a long time close friend of Prince Charles:

This is an extraordinary thing to be talking about when the G20 summit is starting next week. It is a very, very odd time to raise it.

Indeed it is but we all know the reasons for that.

Piece all this together and is there something stirring in the undergrowth that not all is well between Her Majesty and her First Lord of the Treasury?

Another BBC Tory free Sunday looms

Just thought I would advise that yet again there are no Tories on the BBC’s two principal political programmes this Sunday.  Marr has David Miliband and the Politics Show has Alistair Darling.

Hague’ s appearance on Marr last Sunday must have been the decision of a rogue producer!

The drum beats get louder

Both Matthew Parris and Peter Oborne give Brown full throttle in their columns.

Parris concludes:

Don't rule out an October revolution. Don't rule out Mr Brown himself staring a 2010 defeat in the face, and deciding to run away. He's avoided two elections already - for the leadership, and then for an early general. He can duck a third.

There will be a revolution before October and Brown will not go of his own accord.

Oborne deals with Brown’s humiliation in the lead up to the G20 and makes these astute comments about the White House position:

Another consequence of this week's humiliation of Gordon Brown concerns his relations with Barack Obama. The new U.S. President was never keen to attend next week's G20 summit and still regards it as an almost complete waste of time.

Indeed, he is so resigned to the London meeting being a failure that he is contemplating summoning his own meeting of world leaders in Washington to address the financial crisis, a move that would heap humiliation upon humiliation on Gordon Brown.

Furthermore, there is grave concern at the White House about the state of the British economy. The U.S. relies heavily on British military support in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fears that the collapse of the British Government's ability to raise credit could jeopardise that support.

Indeed, there was consternation and - to quote one White House adviser - 'shock' at the failure this week to sell £1.75 billion government bonds because of investors' lack of confidence in the British Government's creditworthiness.

Downing Street may have brushed off this fiasco as a minor matter of little importance, but in Washington it is being taken very seriously. There is even speculation that the U.S. may have to come to the aid of the broken finances of its close ally.

Indeed.   The key meeting next week will be the first between Obama and President Hu Jintao.  If, as expected, the G20 fails, it will be these two leaders that subsequently get together to resolve the economic mess.

Oborne concludes:

Now, however, the Budget will merely reveal the full scale of our national debt. After the Budget come the local and European elections in June, in which Labour faces certain electoral disaster. Matters could scarcely be more grim for the Prime Minister.

Indeed, they are getting so bad that I am no longer as certain as I once was that he will lead Labour into the next General Election. There is a possibility that he may face mutiny over the months ahead.

Precisely.

So now we have Rentoul, Parris, Oborne and Kettle on board saying the obvious will happen.  June will be a very interesting month.

Not the headlines that Brown wants this weekend

Six days before the G20, and while Brown is still marooned in Chile, these are not the headlines Moses will have wanted to see this Saturday.

The Times reports that George Soros thinks Brown may have be bailed out by the IMF:

You have a problem that the banking system is bigger than the economy . . . so for Britain to absorb it alone would really pile up the debt

Asked about the chances of Britain having to seek help from the International Monetary Fund, he said:

that if the banking system continued to collapse, it was a possibility.

At this stage, he added:

it was not a likelihood.

I sure Brown will be grateful for that.

Then over at the Express (not a paper that I usually pay any attention to) there is warning about interest rates.  Spencer Dale, the Bank of England’s chief economist warns:

The committee adjusted monetary policy boldly and ­decisively on the way down in order to meet the inflation target. And let me assure you that, when the time comes, we will be prepared to respond with equal vigour on the way back up.

Yvonne Goodwin, an independent financial adviser based in Leeds, said:

Most of the banks and building societies are offering savers three to four-year terms with relatively low rates.

This is usually a good indication that they think interest rates are likely to rise over the coming months.

They are likely to take off again once the Government’s policy of quantitative easing gets moving.

Good for savers but hardly what Brown wants to hear at the moment.

Yesterday it was the his plans to change the rules of succession to the throne, which have subsequently been kicked into touch.  Today the Falklands and another embarrassing press conference.  Then our hyper-active leader attends at some minor conference that no other left-leaning leader in the world is bothering to turn up for.

Then, after a failed trip, he will travel home exhausted to the UK for the final phase of the worst premiership since the days of Anthony Eden.

Brown’s going home present and a little word of advice

Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, said at a joint press conference with Brown that her economy was in good shape:

….because of our decision during the good times to save some of the money for the bad times.

She went on:

….so when we develop our fiscal stimulus plan we could make one that is 2.8 per cent of GDP.

Nick Robinson, Brown’s new spin doctor, concludes:

Ms Bachelet appeared to be unaware of how unwelcome her comments were.

Well said Nick!

The crisis Brown faces when he touches down at Heathrow is the one of his own leadership.

Remember Sunny Jim.  Whatever you do Gordon, stay in the front of the plane on your trip back and avoid the press pack when you land.

Prescott needs a history lesson and much else besides

Pathetic Prescott said this today:

Why would I want to go and live in bloody Norfolk for God's sake? Nothing good ever came out of bloody Norfolk since Oliver Cromwell.

When asked, even my 13 year old daughter knew that Cromwell was born in Cambridgeshire.

It is being reported tonight that Prescott will not be visiting Norfolk during the election campaign.

Brown will be exhausted next week

For the past 18 years I have done much international travel, waking up in different hotels night after night not knowing where I am.  Most of this I have done alone.  It is physically and mentally exhausting.  You keep going and the adrenalin carries you through.  It is when you get home that you feel the exhaustion and it takes days to recover.

I remember talking to a leading pop star.  He said the travel was awful, sleeping in different venues night after night.  Sometimes he could not even remember what country he was in, and once quoted the wrong city to the one he was performing to.

Pop stars like Brown travel with an entourage .  The pop star told me it made little difference.  There was still the jet lag, the travel and the different locations.  He said the the biggest problem is when something goes wrong.  It is impossible to recover as your schedule is locked in.

The other little problem about concentrated international travel is that is very difficult to think straight.  Your body clock  is in a another time zone and decisions are made in haste with little thought.  A leading businessman once advised me not to make any important decisions for a least 12 hours after you land from a long flight.  That advice is spot on.

Brown will be exhausted next week.  Nobody in their right mind would make a 4 nation trip in six days before an important conference.

Brown throws up another smokescreen

If everything was going smoothly in the warm-up for the G20….

If France and Germany were playing ball….

If Mervyn King had not spoken as he did to the Treasury select committee….

If the financial markets had sold the gilts….

If Stephen Byers had not said the the G20 will fail….

If Dan Hannan had not made that speech….

….Would Brown have stolen the headlines this morning with his plans to change the rules of succession to the throne?

Will someone wake me up when the nightmare of Brown’s premiership is over.

The Labour leadership revisited

Having already concluded that the G20 will be a failure, the commentators are slowly returning to the issue of Brown’s leadership.  Martin Kettle goes on and on in his column before making the only point that matters:

Along with most commentators, I had concluded that the return of Peter Mandelson to the government in the autumn meant that the leadership issue which so convulsed Labour last summer was finally dead until the general election. Now I begin to have doubts. There is talk again, not much but more than for some months, about whether Brown can hold on till the election. The verdict on the G20 will be very important here, as will the budget and the European elections. It can't just go on like this for another 14 months, one Labour MP complained this week. But it can, and it will - won't it?

No it can’t go on like this, absolutely not, as the Tory lead in the polls is now at a consistent 10% to 12%.  The only question is, not if but when, Brown gets a visit from the men in grey suits.  The added problem is it will get worse for Labour and panic will set in.

Exhibit 1: The G20 concludes without any substantial decisions being taken and is written up as a failure.  The markets plummet and the pound falls;

Easter intervenes.

Exhibit 2; There is a further fallout between Brown, King and Brown in the lead up to budget.  The event itself is a non-event except for some tactical measures in an attempt to wrong foot the Tories;

The local and European elections intervene.

Exhibit 3: The results are awful for Labour and questions about the leadership openly break out in the media.

So we get to mid June before any action can be taken to get Moses out, and by then there has been further self-inflicted damage to Labour's prospects.

Alan Johnson (the only credible candidate, as I have argued previously) steps forward in an attempt to give Labour a fighting chance.  By then it will surely be too late.

No Question Time on the day of G20!

I will not dwell on the poor performance of Eric Pickles on Thursday’s Question Time.  I conclude he must have been put off by the presence of the loathsome Michael Winner.

During the programme Dimbleby announced that there will no programme for the next four weeks during the Easter parliamentary recess.

So the British Bungling Corporation will not broadcast an edition on the day of the G20 when parliament is in fact sitting!  However we will get This Week with Abbott laying into Moses and Portillo with his penetrating analysis.

Who makes these pathetic decisions at the BBC?

Obama breaks protocol

It is being reported that Obama may meet Cameron during his trip to London.  As far as I am aware this breaks protocol.  It would be usual for an opposition leader to meet a President if this was a State visit, but Obama’s visit is solely to attend the G20.

It would be wrong to read too much into this but clearly the US administration expects a change of Government and Obama would wish to build a relationship with the likely next Prime Minister.

It will be interesting to see how Cameron plays this if the meeting with Obama happens.  Does he keep it low key or spin the meeting as being significant?

Each G20 leader can speak for just under 14 minutes

Same Coates has the details of the agenda for the G20:

Leaders' breakfast 8.30am - 9.45am

Morning session including finance ministers and central bankers 9.50am- 1.25pm

Lunch 1.25pm - 2.30pm

Afternoon session including finance ministers and central bankers 2.30pm to 3.30pm

Closing press conferences, 3.30 onwards

So the meeting lasts 4 hours 35 minutes.  My estimate was 3 to 4 hours.

The cost of the submit is £50m.  So each 14 minute leader slot costs £2.5m.

Value for money for the hard pressed British taxpayer.

My take on Guido v Draper

Bloggers should stick to blogging and not slag each other off, least of all on national television.

We should act as a community and be seen to do so.  We should argue and debate but not hurl abuse at one another.

Enough said.

The mind blowing statistic that will make Cameron shudder

The FT’s Westminister blog quotes this mind blowing statistic:

The FT’s resident economics guru Chris Giles has a flabbergasting explanation of the scale of the debt the government is raising in the next two years: £350bn.

That is more debt bequeathed to its successor than the total borrowed by successive rulers and governments of Britain between 1691 and 1997, the year Labour was elected.

Is anyone serious about wanting to win the election?

Brown can avoid further suffering

Brown needs to think again before he leaves these historical islands to rack up more air miles. So far this week we have had:

- King sending Brown a thermal nuclear missile and then running off to spill the beans to HMQ;

- Brown being forced back track on a global stimulus package;

- The financial markets giving Brown a ‘V’ sign over Government borrowing;

- Stephen Byers telling Brown he has wasted billions on the cut in VAT and saying the G20 will fail;

- Dan Hannan launching his own Exocet missile at Brown; and

- Myners suffering amnesia over Goodwin’s pension arrangements.

Today brings further bad news to the man that wants to save the world:

1. Obama may scupper the Copenhagen climate change deal due to the scale of opposition in Congress.  It is reported he needs another six months win over support for any proposal;

2. Retail sales growth slows to 0.4%  in February compared to 12 months previously, the smallest increase since 1995.  Kingfisher and H&M profits slump;

3. Matthew Norman writes brilliantly in the Indy and concludes:

If Gordon, ever-more remotely marooned on his fantasy island of vast global influence and unfettered domestic command, backs down and muffles the stimulus hunting cry next week, it will leave him looking, to borrow from the resignation of yet another embittered former Chancellor, in office but not in power. If he doesn't – if he ploughs on with the demand for even more colossal spending and debt – he will be at war with the Bank of England, and at DefCon Two with his next-door neighbour.

There is no obvious way out of this one. He has been on his electoral death bed for ages, of course, ever since that definitive week in October 2007 when he cluck-cluck-clucked his way out of going to the country. But this may well be seen as the week he ran out of appeals for clemency, because the only quantative easing available to him now appears to involve the child-proof lid on that bottle of Downing Street strychnine.

To save himself further humiliation perhaps Moses should concoct some international incident so he can downgrade next weeks G20 to finance minister level!

The country stops at 12.00 for Guido v Draper

Parliament will be suspended, the stock exchange will stop trading, aeroplanes will not fly, restaurants will empty, shopping malls will be deserted, factory workers will down tools, office workers will huddle round TV screens, the national electricity grid is on standby for peak loading and the BBC computer servers are being boosted.

At 12.00 the Daily Politics will show the “Battle of the Bloggers”.

Andrew Neil's huge ego will be further inflated today as the show will get a record audience.

Will views of the dual on YouTube exceed this one?

Enjoy! Enjoy!

Myners changes his story

The truth is slowing seeping out of Myners on what he know when about Goodwin’s pension.  In a letter to John McFall, the chairman of the Treasury committee, he now admits that he did know the size of Goodwin’s pension:

The following evening (Oct 12) I was telephoned by a director of RBS, Mr Robert Scott, and during the course of that conversation was told of the then estimated transfer value of Sir Fred’s pension.

This is of course at variance to what he said last week during his verbal evidence to the Treasury committee.

All that is needed now is the letter from Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, which should explode in McFall’s face on Friday.

It looks like Myners will be packing his bags over the weekend.

Brown is defeated and will come home alone

 

With the cat is away the mice play.  The First Lord of the Treasury finds himself no longer in charge of his own economic policy.  Mervyn King and Alistair Darling have hijacked the show while Moses is on his pre-G20 jolly.  In addition, the markets have made it plain that the gilt sale failed yesterday due to the level of Government borrowing.

Brown waved the while flag that there would be no agreement on a further stimulus at the G20:

Nobody is suggesting that people come to the G20 meeting and put on the table the budget that they’re going to have for the next year. What we are suggesting is that we have together to look at what we have done so far . . . and then say, ‘What should happen next?

Every country will have its own timing for announcing its fiscal and monetary decisions. Nobody is trying to upset that timing.

In other words, Germany and France 5 Brown 0.  And there will no budget stimulus in extra time.

With some saying that the gilt sale failure ‘holes Brown below the waterline’, and the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolánek, calling Obama’s fiscal stimulus package and financial bailout the ‘way to hell’, Brown looks very isolated.

There is more.  The US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner said:

No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk.

In other words Brown and Greenspan got the financial model wrong and we are all paying the price.

Brown is now trapped by the manoeuvring of Darling and King and the markets giving a big ‘V’ sign to the bottomless pit of Government borrowing.  Brown has spent billions, pursued policies that he can’t sell to the world in the hope that it would revive his political fortunes.

The only positive sign of the past 48 hours is that the UK now has a succession plan for the future.  Prime Minister Cameron will be followed by Prime Minister Hannan.

Enoch Powell said all political careers end in failure.  Brown’s is going to end in humiliation.