In accordance with my long stated policy of making this blog mainly about current government policy and what to do next I have not been discussing the Labour government’s great recession and banking crash of 2007-10 for many years. We talked about it at the time. I explained how Brown and Darling could have avoided the worst of the banking squeeze that undermined the banks. I with the Opposition and others had warned of the excessive credit and money causing inflation in the long run up to the crisis. I blamed them for keeping money and credit too loose on the way up and making it too tight on the way down along with their chums at the Bank of England.
They put us on a merciless big dipper, said it was caused by the rest of the world, trashed their reputation for economic competence and duly lost the election. As always the public blamed the incumbents not worldwide trends and in this case were clearly right to do so.
Labour lived under the shadow of their disaster for many years. They won in 2024 not because they had rebuilt trust with millions of voters they had lost but because the Conservative vote collapsed out of anger about what the Conservative government had done and not done, with mass abstentions and votes for parties that could not win that election carrying Labour into office.
In eighteen months Labour have halved their small support levels of the 2024 election and lost more of their rating for economic competence. They have so far put inflation, unemployment, illegal migration, taxes, borrowing, energy prices and closures of business up, and failed to deliver much by way of better public service for all the extra money spent on wage rises and more public sector staff.
Into this mess Gordon Brown decides to go on the media, possibly with the agreement of Keir Starmer, to demand changes with the way things are done to tackle the abuses he allowed or helped create in markets, banking and the economy 18 years ago. Bring it on! He has just made Labour’s worst days 18 years ago relevant to their worst days so far under this government, with the help of his new enemy Mr Mandelson who he brought back into the Cabinet and recommended for a peerage.
Gordon Brown has now made allegations about what Mandelson did, but these are all matters subject to a police investigation to see what evidence there is. Today Mr Mandelson is not guilty of breaking any law and faces no charges. Gordon Brown implies there are issues other than or as well as possible misconduct in public office that need looking into. Time will tell if there is anything that can be proven.
Gordon Brown pleads guilty himself to the same gross error Keir Starmer admits he made of welcoming Mandelson into the heart of government and believing him. Starmer and Brown are joined together in claiming Mandelson was a liar to both of them, and claiming that he both let the Brown government down and now the Starmer government. This is a far more serious crisis because a PM and a former PM both say they put a liar at the heart of government and both say he did damage. In Gordon Brown’s case he says he did not know at the time what damage Mandelson was doing and in Starmer’s case the damage is visible and tearing his government apart.Only they know what Mandelson did say to them, and will need to produce documents to prove their charge of lies.
2007-10 was a disaster for the UK economy, banks and markets. It took years of patient and difficult work to rebuild the strength of the banks and to get public spending and borrowing under some control. Labour MPs need to read the runes of 2007-10 and recognise if they make the wrong decisions about who to lead them and what action they take to improve the economy they could revisit some of the darkest economic and market days of their previous government. Mr Mandelson’s tenure as Ambassador to the US has ended by doing damage to the important US relationship.
Gordon Brown’s list of things to do to try to purge the two crises will not give us growth and lower prices. It seems more designed to make Mandelson take the blame for all failures rather than sort out today’s difficulties of policy. They do need a fair enquiry into Mandelson’s actions then and now. More than that they need new immigration and economic policies that work and are in line with public demands. Attacking workers, savers and strivers and giving away power money and islands to foreign interests is angering many more people. Smash the gangs? Give us the fastest growth? Keep taxes down ? When do they do any of these things?
February 8, 2026
“Attacking workers, savers and strivers and giving away power money and islands to foreign interests is angering many more people. ”
Socialists always do these things – except to empployees in the state sector
“Smash the gangs? Give us the fastest growth? Keep taxes down ? When do they do any of these things?”
Socialists never do these things.
February 8, 2026
When will they do any of these things you ask. The answer is never
Both Brown and Starmer are in hock to the WEF and are rapidly back peddling to cover their mistakes. What they did was deliberate to undermine the country including Brown giving away our gold reserves and Starmer our fish.
Together with enemy number one Milibrain their path of destruction is clear.
February 8, 2026
Agreed. And the same applies to the Heirs to Blair …. and the 14 years of betrayal we suffered, right up to “Stop the Boats” Sunak who refused to actually do anything meaningful to stop them.
February 8, 2026
Yes Peter, and when employed in the State sector you even get a pay off when sacked, or promoted sideways out of the firing line and into a more comfortable job, no penalty for failure unlike those of us in the real World of hard knocks, and that is the real difference, failure is accepted and even rewarded in the State or Public sector, which is why it is failing at nearly all levels.
February 8, 2026
Gordon Brown, believing he was defending Starmer has done us all a great favour. He has joined the last Labour Government’s disasters to the present Labour Government’s disasters.
We can now sit in judgement of Labour Governments. Redwood will be able to forensically disembowel their joint economic illiteracy from the red benches shortly.
However both Prime Ministers have admitted being dupes.
Tony Blair has lost his foghorn, perhaps he is stranded on an island somewhere ….
This is the end of Labour.
We need a sound, strong new party with true capitalist, democratic values. Honest, open and ruthless. All the scabs must be ripped off and the sores cleansed so they heal.
Perhaps if Reform get rid of Farage, who announced that Mandleson was ‘brilliant’ and would make a wonderful US Ambassador (another dupe) they could form a credible Opposition.
I’m afraid the Conservatives will not cut it, even though it is refreshing to have a party leader say with confidence that ‘she is not in the Epstein files’.
February 8, 2026
Lynn, I think Farage said Mandelson was an extremely well briefed and brilliant operator, but could never be trusted.
Starmer showed his ignorance of the real world when he employed him, knowing his faults and past record.
Many of us our here with no first hand personal experience of him, found it difficult to believe he was the right choice after having been sacked twice, apart from more recent events, which Starmer addmitted were on record at the time.
February 8, 2026
Lynn – Nigel Farage has said he was willing to help incoming US ambassador Lord Mandelson negotiate with Donald Trump’s administration. Hardly ‘brilliant’. But then that is your scorn to a tee.
February 8, 2026
I would prefer free market values to capitalist values, although both would be an improvement on the semi-socialism that we have been subject to since 1997
February 8, 2026
Reply I am not following the by election.Comment when we know the result
February 8, 2026
Don’t forget the dot.com crash of March/April 2000. At the time British pension funds were very exposed to equities, particularly the tech bubble stocks. There was concern that should the market suffer a “correction”, those nearing retirement would lose substantial sums. Greenspan famously referred to “irrational exuberance”
Brown recognised this and in a directive of unbelievable idiocy, instructed the pension funds to divest a large portion of their equity holdings. Pension and endowment mortgage firms like the then Standard Life and L&G immediately dumped a lot of their stock holdings, which caused the start of the crash
I can recall, aghast, when the FTSE 100 dropped a stomach churning 12%. In one day. Those shorting the market made a killing. By the end of the long stock market downturn in 2002, global stocks had lost $5 trillion in market capitalization from the peak. At its trough on October 9, 2002, the NASDAQ-100 had dropped to 1,114, down 78%.
Rock on Gordon, Mr Prudence.
February 8, 2026
Same old roller coaster Labour drive country into owing loads of money. Who ever follows has to get us back on track
February 8, 2026
Too many politicians lie and deceive. Even worse they do so in what appears to be total ignorance of how market economies work. Most voters have had enough which is why they are looking at the alternatives on offer.
February 8, 2026
Back in the late 1990’s UK institutional investors owned nearly half of all UK-quoted shares. Now it is less than 5 per cent. Why is this? – Gordon Brown’s tax raid on dividends paid to pension funds.
Until 1997, pension funds got a tax credit. So if they were paid £80 in dividends, they got back £20 as a credit. The rationale was that the company had already paid corporation tax and for pensioners at least there should be some sort of rebate
The numbers did not look huge. It raised £5billion a year and since pensioners did not realise what was happening, Brown slipped it through in his first Budget that summer without much hassle
Cumulatively, though, the impact was huge. Not only did pensioners lose the income, they lost the growth in funds that would have accrued from reinvested dividends. The total loss has been put at £250billion over the ensuing 20 years. And of course, now it raises no money for the treasury because pension funds hold hardly any British shares
Brown’s stealth tax on dividends caused the end of final salary pensions in the private sector. Now, we all get “defined contribution” pensions, which are much less generous.
Rock on Gordon, Mr Prudence
February 8, 2026
SG
Agreed investors in almost anything are now taxed on actually trading, and anything that gains a return no matter how small. Unspent Pension funds now double taxed after death with both IHT and Income tax, who would invest in a personal Pension or Sipp now with so many restrictions, regulations and taxes.
February 8, 2026
and the younger generation decided ‘why save, why invest in my future pension, why try to get employer to put more into my pension scheme?’ Chancellors no longer trustworthy……in spades.
February 8, 2026
A respawn Gordon Brown just reminds me of the horror show that was the FSA and his ‘end boom and bust’ incredulity. I think he should assist with any investigations about Mandelson in private.
February 8, 2026
Good morning.
Gordon Brown – A man whose greatest crime is to believe in his own hype. Him and this woman who he referred to as, Prudence. Whatever happened to her ?
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In other news. I see they have started on the (non-government) Commission for the Grooming Gangs. A tragic tale that has been going on unreported, as usual, for literally decades. So long in fact that, whilst it would be fair to say our kind host knew nothing of Mr. Epstein and his Grooming Gang, one has to ask whether he ever heard of such behaviour ?
February 8, 2026
Prudence. Whatever happened to her ? I think she died of malnutrition with inadequate pension..
February 8, 2026
I wonder why Brown and Two-Tier don’t realise that branding Mandelson a liar and blaming the fact that he lied to them for all their woes doesn’t make a scrap of difference to the watching electorate?
They believe (in my view correctly) that all politicians lie to them to a greater or lesser degree and the two individuals now doing the complaining are themselves outrageous liars, particularly the current incumbent of No.10. It’s a clear case of the Pot calling the Kettle black.
Brown, in his usual clumsy way, is just trying to use this scandal to push through policies which will further his socialist cause, caring not a jot for the ordinary working people whose lives are made more difficult, and in some cases ruined, by the Utopian ideologies and basic incompetence of people like him.
February 8, 2026
Never was the saying “Birds of a feather” more apposite.
February 8, 2026
do mean vultures – preying on the nieve or dying.
February 8, 2026
Brer Blair is still very noticeable by his absence, layin’ low and saying’ nuthin’ as the NuLabour Project collapses all around, destroyed by one of its senior architects.
I wonder when he’s going to pop up to remind us that “he’s a pretty straight kinda guy” and claim that he is incredibly shocked to find out about Mandelson’s behaviour and to discover that Mandelson lied to him as well.
February 8, 2026
So Brown and Starmer “discovered” too late that Mandelson was damaging. And what of Blair?
Mandelson served 7 months under Starmer, 18 months under Brown…and 4 years under Blair.
February 8, 2026
Never was the saying “Birds of a feather” more apposite.
February 8, 2026
Brown lost approx £35bn met in the bank bailouts and approx £45bn so far in the gold sale. Besides all sorts of other errors. His period as chancellor and PM were a disaster. He says Keir Starmer is a man of integrity “which isn’t true of some other PMs” (by which presumably he means the Conservative ones not himself).
Brown must be one of the most overrated political figures of recent decades. Let’s see what he thinks are the best policies – and then do the opposite.
February 8, 2026
A prudent Scot?, but the money he lost us wasn’t his after all to lose.
February 8, 2026
Interesting to read in his emails to Epstein what Mandelson really thought of Brown even when he was his de facto deputy PM. I imagine that’s part of the reason Brown has suddenly broken cover. Tony Blair’s silence is notable.
February 8, 2026
Who would doubt that should a bond market crash happen next week, Brown’s advice would again be sought. Trump blamed. Billions again in QE to prop up banks and lower interest rates, stoking up inflation for 2 years time. By which time yet again it will be somebody else’s problem.
February 8, 2026
If i was Scottish or welsh I would be asking for independence from the UK government
February 8, 2026
I’ve noticed that at least one person who sat as the Reform candidate for parliament at the last election is now a Conservative councillor in another part of the country. Which just goes to show the kind of person standing for election now is quite happy to flit between any old party just to try and get some power. Sad really.