Neverneverland economics

PMQ today witnessed both the lack of vision (if you don't have anything better, attack the opposition) and blindness (or is it sheer dishonesty) of our world saviour.

Last Friday, in his press conference, G. Brown amazed the assembled press corps by claiming that government expenditure will rise over the next few years. They all knew he was lying, just as he was lying about not wanting to replace Darling with Balls as chancellor.

He repeated the lie again today. Despite the massive forecast accumulating government debt which is threatening our AAA credit rating, he reeled off a list of increases which were dazzling in their unreality.

Very few people doubt that because of his earlier rash of spending and the consequent recession, whoever leads the next government will have to face a truly enormous mountain of debt. In fact the figures announced by the chancellor in the Budget, although taking most people's breath away, are generally regarded on the extreme side of optimistic, to put it kindly, and are already appearing to be so after just two months into the financial year.

So the choice is between reduced expenditure of some severity or increased taxation of some enormity, or some position in between, and with our Standard & Poors rating threatening to make the burden much greater if debt rises significantly one of these options must be chosen.

G.Brown is either lying or failing to understand, and with the claim for wizardry he makes regularly it must surely be the former.