Borrowing Brown Blown Out Of The Water

Borrowing Brown's bonkers crusade for a painful cure-all fiscal stimulus has been blown out of the water after 'surprise' inflation figures left him at odds with the Bank of England boss, his chancellor and most of the world. 

Brown's hyped-up Save The World ego tour and London G20 plan is in tatters. 

In the economic La-La Land of making it up as you go along, today's widely predicted inflation figures were supposed to show the Retail Price Index (RPI) sinking into dangerous deflation while the government's much-loved Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropping like a lead balloon. 

Only they didn't. Headline RPI fell to 0 percent in February, its lowest since 1960, from 0.1 percent in January, while the CPI actually rose to 3.2 percent in February from 3 percent. 

But the government is a victim of its own spin and deserves all it gets. The neat trick of the CPI was brought in by Brown during the false boom years as the government's preferred spin to measure inflation. Now it's coming back to haunt them. 

That left Bank of England boss, Mervyn King, who prefers RPI, in a pickle, forced to drop a line to hapless Darling explaining why CPI inflation is more than a full percentage point above the official 2 percent target. 

Darling will be rubbing his hands with glee and then putting two fingers up to Brown who's still bent on a massive borrowing binge and spending spree. 


What is happening is plain to see. RPI is zero because mortgage costs and house prices have taken a dive. Take out housing and CPI, which measures the cost of what people are buying, has risen. 

Any fool can see inflation has increased. The devaluation of the pound in our pocket has made us poorer. Food bills are going up, water rates have risen, while savings interest has dropped.

The price of food and drink is soaring. Cigs are going up. Imported goods like clothing and footwear are now falling less fast because of the weakness of the pound, which has raised the price of imported goods. 

Inflation is the proverbial Monty Python parrot. It isn't dead, it's just resting. And could soon return.

The Orange Party has long warned the government's reckless fiscal stimulus, unprecedented borrowing and printing of money could unleash a huge inflationary hurricane leaving behind the debris of debt.
 

But a much-needed steady hand on the economic tiller isn't happening, as deluded Brown, obsessed with his multi-billion pounds borrowing stimulus is getting increasingly short shrift from many, apart from his new best friend Obama, who has the luxury of four years to run himself out of his economic hole. 

Ben Brogan reports, King dropped a bombshell in his evidence to the treasury select committee.  He doesn't think there is a case for another fiscal stimulus. 

And that's the very same economic stimulus on which Brown is pinning all his hopes at the G for Gordon 20 summit and in the very budget where he's been forcing a reluctant Darling to write his own political suicide note and pump-prime the economy with more of Brown's borrowed billions. 

The head of the European Central Bank, Sarkozy of France, Merkel of Germany, the boss of the IMF and now the Bank of England governor are all backing off from another bonkers borrowing boost, leaving an obsessive Brown increasingly alone in his own little world. 

Making sense of it all is a nightmare for sure but without that steady hand on the tiller, deflation or inflation are economic killers.  

Burning Our Money is, as usual, on the money: "Our currency is being systematically debauched. Interest rates have been slashed, the printing presses are roaring, and savers are being raped."

What's needed is a sound strategy - and a leader. Answers on a postcard to: G. Brown, the Bunker, Downing Street, for when the Supreme Leader gets back from his South American pre-election PR jolly.