http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/4936712/Gordon-Brown-refuses-to-apologise-for-economic-crisis.html
Apparently, it’s a global problem.
OK, in that case, let’s have a look at average UK house prices under the Labour government up to the credit crunch.
What’s wrong with this picture? Do I see house prices increased threefold? Yes I do. So you didn’t think anything was amiss Mr Brown? You didn’t think anything needed to be done?Of course, you did implement some measures, didn’t you? You took action. And you made things even worse:
Because with the introduction of CPI targeting you changed the inflation measure so it excluded housing (after all, housing is only the premier expense of the average citizen, so why include such a trivial cost in the inflation figures eh? Good one.). You also validated the asset inflation by raising the stamp duty threshold (thus cementing in the public mind the idea that rising house prices are as natural a process as the sun rising every morning) . Oh, and let’s not forget your bollocks shared ownership scheme – which says “we’re not going to do a damn thing about housing being too expensive in the first place for pretty much every first time buyer in the land, but instead you can own a little bit of a hugely overpriced property and pay rent on the rest”.
But I digress, Mr Brown. May I ask, did the Northern Rock 125% mortgages ring any alarm bells? No? The 2004 BBC documentary "Mortgage Madness" investigating the self cert scandal cause any sleepless nights at all? No, nothing? Too busy collecting all that extra stamp duty eh?
Meanwhile, friends, colleagues and family, much less well remunerated and educated than our fine governing elites had spotted that something was amiss years ago (I can still remember a colleague remarking in 2003 when we were discussing the housing market, “It’s a frenzy!”)
Not to blame? With the greatest of respect, Prime Minister: get to fuck.
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