Economic 9/11 - Unintentionally Good Analogy?

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Nick Clegg has today given a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Reseach at Canary Wharf. The big quote: "Financial crisis may be Economic 9/11"

Oh, I agree with this a lot. Nick's argument is that that power and economic strength are related, and there's a danger that might arise from unilateral action that serves petty nationalistic interests which, as we experienced in 9/11, have devastating knock-on consequences.

So, is this an 'Economic 9/11'. Well, it is in that it is a catastrophe that's empowering the people guaranteed to make the situation worse a special license to do whatever the hell they want, and with the full support of the British public who are so deranged with fear that they have ditched reason and the lessons of the past 100 years in the hope that someone, anyone can just "make it go away! don't know how but make it go away!!"

Sadly it appears that the official party line is to welcome the weekend's interventions.  I sincerely hope that our strategy is to let Brown hoist himself on his own petard, like handing a tee-totaller a bottle of vodka with a wink and a nod saying, "don't worry, your secret's safe". The more he does the more he will be intrinsically blamed for the fall out, when he's caught red handed stinking of booze. Brown's licence to Nationalise can only end one way: Another generation in the wilderness for Labour.

I'm going to be charitable and assume that this "it's not just bad luck for Labour.. they really are a frickin' nightmare" strategy, with the aim of condemning the party permanently as basically a party of very bad ideas,  is what we're thinking behind closed doors in Cowley St. We're taking the hit now for the long term good. 

By simply agreeing to support whatever Brown does, they offer him no alternative solutions. They offer no support, no ideas - nothing but his own economic othodoxy. There can be no way of out this for Brown that he does not engineer himself. He can blame no-one else if he fails, nor have any grounds to say, "you were AGAINST the action we took" during a General Election - which I suspect may be brought forward. No doubt in the short term he will successfully slow the decline of the economy, which may look like 'saving it', and he will hail this as a triumph.

Politically our position makes a certain kind of sense. It's the sensible, pragmatic realistic approach to take - even if it does mean we're watching the end of Britain's international dominance of financial services, and thus the end of our biggest export. 

Of course, maybe we really believe that what the Government's doing is right... but with this 'economic 9/11' quote the seeds of a future 'angle' for the Liberal Democrats is becoming a little bit clearer. 

This blog is closed and has moved to http://Charlottegore.com. See you there!