It was hardly the most eagerly anticipated political book launch of 2010 but Tuesday saw the arrival into bookshops of Gordon Brown’s latest book entitled ‘Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the first crisis of Globalisation’ (already reduced to half the RRP at Amazon.co.uk). Considering he served his country as the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a decade and was the Prime Minister when it all hit the pan, one would be forgiven for expecting it contain extensive economical insight. However, as spotted by two eagle-eyed columnists at the Telegraph, the book contains two extraordinary admissions:
Firstly, Mr Brown says that the financial crisis was all down to banker greed. He writes:
OK, perhaps it wasn’t quite so unexpected for him to place all the blame solely on the bankers, but it does raise the question of why did he not intervene earlier, stiffen up regulation on the banks and impose levies on bankers’ bonuses much earlier?
But most extraordinary is the passage highlighted by David Hughes in which Mr Brown, who was the Chancellor for 10 years and Shadow Chancellor for a while before that, admits that he 'is no economist'.
While it’s quite refreshing to see such an admission, I cannot help feeling it devalues the rest of the content within the book since he made his name on the world stage as our country’s Chancellor for so long.
Fast forward to today and can we now say the UK’s economy in better hands now with Tory posh-boy George Osborne? Only time will tell, but he too left university with a degree in Modern History (not economics) and as revealed last week hardly got a vote of confidence from the head of the Bank of England Mervyn King.
In a secret US cable released by Wikileaks, the Mr King said they [David Cameron and George Osborne] “had a tendency to think about issues only in terms of politics, and how they might affect Tory electability” and described Mr Osborne as “lightweight and inexperienced, in part due to his high-pitched vocal delivery”.
Firstly, Mr Brown says that the financial crisis was all down to banker greed. He writes:
“We can now detail in the most precise terms the cost of excessive remuneration at the expense of adequate capitalisation. We now know that, if British bankers had paid themselves 10% less per year between 2000 and 2007, they would have had more capital, some £50bn more, to help them to withstand the crisis. The extent of the undercapitalisation of our banks was £50bn, and was exactly the sum put up by the taxpayers for the emergency stabilisation of our banking system.”
OK, perhaps it wasn’t quite so unexpected for him to place all the blame solely on the bankers, but it does raise the question of why did he not intervene earlier, stiffen up regulation on the banks and impose levies on bankers’ bonuses much earlier?But most extraordinary is the passage highlighted by David Hughes in which Mr Brown, who was the Chancellor for 10 years and Shadow Chancellor for a while before that, admits that he 'is no economist'.
The remarkable ‘disclaimer’ comes in the opening pages of the book and reads: “I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist but fear of making technical mistakes (of which, I am sure, this book is full) should not silence us altogether when the task before us is so urgent.”
While it’s quite refreshing to see such an admission, I cannot help feeling it devalues the rest of the content within the book since he made his name on the world stage as our country’s Chancellor for so long.
Fast forward to today and can we now say the UK’s economy in better hands now with Tory posh-boy George Osborne? Only time will tell, but he too left university with a degree in Modern History (not economics) and as revealed last week hardly got a vote of confidence from the head of the Bank of England Mervyn King.
In a secret US cable released by Wikileaks, the Mr King said they [David Cameron and George Osborne] “had a tendency to think about issues only in terms of politics, and how they might affect Tory electability” and described Mr Osborne as “lightweight and inexperienced, in part due to his high-pitched vocal delivery”.
