The Father of Conservatism

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Herein lies the Ghost in the political machine of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. Much like Max Weber arguing with the Ghost of Marx, this blog seeks to make relevant and where appropriate support or reject Burke's 'Reflections' against the backdrop of the disastrous New Labour experiment.

Friday 28 November 2008

Time is up on the Brown Solution


Gordon Brown's constant mention that the whole world is in his hands is an outright lie. Take the evidence of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, speaking earlier this week.

She feels that Brown's remedy of throwing cheap money at the economy to boost it, which I might add is borrowed money, is exactly the same act as what got us here in the first place – a debt ridden society.

Ms. Merkel states: "I am deeply concerned about whether we are now reinforcing this trend through measures being adopted in the US and elsewhere and whether we could find ourselves in five years facing the exact same crisis."

The difference in her rhetoric can be traced back to the way Germany built a large surplus in times of plenty, something that slipped Gordon's mind as he was to busy fantasising over the end of 'boom and busts.' Hence we now have Gordon lunging around calling for a fiscal stimulus.

She believes that this course of action is nothing more than short term solutions of stimulating the economy rather than overhauling huge global problems in the way we borrow and save. Her chief economic advisor echoes her sentiments:

“How good is a policy package if it has to be changed every other week? How good is it for confidence? The latest British decisions on VAT and income tax, for instance, are inconsistent. Better to wait a bit longer and put forward more durable solutions,"

These type of aggressive utterances should be what Cameron and Osborne should be mounting as a direct attack on Gordon. They must shatter the lie that all other nations are following his economic ways and furthermore, that these nations ever followed him in the first place by allowing one's nation to borrow disproportionately against its surplus.

Cameron needs to pick up this sceptre laid down by Chancellor Merkel, that conveyed the doubts people had over using fiscal brute force to reverse the current economic cycle. Merkel adds: “Our goal is not to try and overcome the crisis, but to build a bridge so that we at least can start recovering in 2010.”

So the 'do nothing' rhetoric Brown is trying to pin on Cameron could actually be embraced by the Tories, by using Merkel's political significance, as a reason to work for a long term solution to the current economic woes, not supermarket give-away sales in the form of tax-holidays that will no doubt have to be paid for later down the line.

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