Germans Save World From Brown

Brown won't be saving the world at today's EU summit, instead he'll be forced to save his own skin, as Germany wiped the grin off his face, slamming borrowing Brown's economic plans as 'crass' and 'breathtaking'.

Downing Street's rapid rebuttal claims Germany is 'out of step' but it is Brown who is out of step and out of touch with reality.

Like many, the Orange Party rolled around with mirth as Flash Gordon told the commons he'd saved the world. He's having a laugh ... is he having a laugh? Then the awful truth sank in. Brown actually believes all the crap his lord and master Mandelson is feeding him.

The attack came from an unlikely source, Germany's finance minister and economist, Peer Steinbruck. That cannot be dismissed as a right-wing Conservative rant, because Steinbruck is from the centre left - a social democrat - here he'd fit in nicely with New Labour.

Steinbrück's attack struck a chord. The Orange Party has long believed the prime minister's borrowing binge solution is a sham. More to do with political advantage than economics. A way of digging both Brown and Bush out of the economic hole of their own making.

What did we get in the leaked, pre-budget election Budget? A piddling little stunt to cut VAT and a cunning plan to "toss around billions", causing record-breaking national debt and a burden on the UK economy for a generation.

Steinbruck is in no doubt the government's plans are ineffective and expensive.

"Are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs £39.10 instead of £39.90? All this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off ...The switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking."

The Orange Party believes the key to UK prosperity is manufacturing. But for a decade the government has allowed manufacturing to rot, preferring instead to switch to an economy based on the financial institutions of the City. Only perhaps pharmaceuticals have survived in any strength.

Not so in Germany, which is the biggest manufacturer and exporter in the world. A strong manufacturing base creates real jobs and pumps real cash into the economy and helps Germany weather the economic storm.

A reliance on cheap shoddy imports from China made with slave labour in appalling conditions was a high price to pay for false prosperity. Pumping billions into the coffers then going with a begging bowl to the same country to borrow billions at high interest is a topsy-turvy was of running an economy and a country.

Downing Street spinners reckon Germany "was in a minority position and out of step with most other countries on how to deal with the looming recession". But if a powerful manufacturing country like Germany with a sensible finance minister reckons Brown is talking crap - then it is Brown who is 'out of step', not the other way round.

At the heart is the stark economic fact that it was a decade of borrowing which caused the current financial mess.

As Steinbruck said: "When I ask about the origins of the crisis, economists I respect tell me it is the credit-financed growth of recent years and decades. Isn't this the same mistake everyone is suddenly making again, under all the public pressure?"

12pm UPDATE: Government ministers and supporters have been rallying around their beleaguered boss. But even Downing Street's mouthpiece, Nick Robinson (bless) isn't his usual BBC Brown self: "There is, dare I suggest, another perfectly plausible theory. Mr Steinbruck believes what he says and does agree rather more with Mr Cameron than with Mr Brown, even though they come from the opposite ends of the political spectrum." Just what is he trying to say?