Gordon contra mundum

The OECD has recently added its voice to the number of organisations warning the UK that its public debt position is now so bad that immediate action will be necessary to avoid sliding into real economic decline. They follow the IMF and credit agencies such as Fitch and Standard & Poors., and a number of economists, yours truly included.

All these use UK government data, - what else could they use? As Cameron said, even if we succeed in Brown's declared aim to reduce the annual deficit by 50%, we shall still have a situation where the ratio of debt to GDP is at about the level it was when Dennis Healy had to be bailed out by the IMF in the 1970s, after an earlier Labour economic failure.

The latest government monthly budget deficit, for October, is the worst ever for that month in peace time, and double what it was in 2008. We may be coming out of recession, but our national debt gets ever larger, and makes the chancellor's forecast of £175 billion for this financial year look a serious under-estimate.

G.Brown, with his crude Keynesianism, differs. He can still promise greater spending and debt. He really is going for broke, and we could be bust.

Perhaps we can hope that in his December statement, delayed in the hope of good news I suspect, that the Chancellor has read some of the statements of the bodies I mentioned at that the start, but I doubt it somehow, with G.Brown standing over him.