Scorched earth policy

It seems that Brown & Co. have discussed what remaining parts of the family silver could be sold. The assets include the Royal Mail and Land Registry. To grub a few more millions desperately and keep down the immediate borrowing figures very slightly, almost everything seems up for grabs.

This is entirely the desperate throw of a defeated government intending t0 inflict maximum harm and difficulty on political opponents who will replace them.

It seems that even the infamous, 50 pence tax on high incomes could have a similar effect, as many high earners will go to other countries, almost any as we are now are now among the highest taxing in the world. So some of the cream of creative people could be leaving and reduce the chance of a good recovery.

The next 10 or more years will be a period of austerity, possibly for the UK alone. It will be hard to reform wasteful public sector bodies when there is no money. Apart from the massive new borrowing there will be PFI projects to pay for and ever-increasing public sector pensions.

The comment on the Budget by the editor of the Wall Street Journal today, in a parody of the Title of the Budget - Building Britain's future, is "Burying Britain's Future."

The Brown/Blair legacy will be with us for many years to come, and present an incoming government with a much harder problem that that faced by the Thatcher government. One unanswered question is "Why do the Tories want to be the next government?"