Physician, Heal Thyself
Ted Bromund /
Gordon Brown spoke today to a joint meeting of Congress. Did you notice? Well, exactly. There is one overwhelming reason to take him seriously: he is the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of reasons not to take him seriously. For one, he is massively behind in the polls. For another, his ideas for a ‘Global New Deal,’ with massive stimulus packages for the entire world, are destructive, undemocratic, and wrong.
And then there’s this basic reality, which has gone curiously unremarked in the United States. Brown was for ten years Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the second most powerful figure in the British government. Indeed, for a lot of it, he looked like being the most powerful figure, with Tony Blair occupying No. 10 only by his grace. Being Chancellor, especially with that kind of political clout, is like combining the powers of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury with a good bit of those that belong to the Oval Office, plus a leading seat in the Senate. If any single man is responsible for the state of the British economy today, it’s Gordon Brown. That was his job.
So how is that economy doing? Well, let’s turn to Steve Bundred, the Chief Executive of Britain’s Audit Commission, which provides official and independent assessments of whether public services give value for money: (more…)