Gordon Brown cracks hilarious bank collapse gag

[Upwind]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660293.stm

Ho Ho Ho

He is currently using our money to fight fires that he stoked by doing nothing about the credit bubble. Money that could have been put to better use for healthcare, education, even equipping our soldiers.

[RedOnHerBeheadedHead]

if he doesn't it would be a hell of a lot worse for us.

[Upwind]

Agree Red, but wish it had not come to this... and under the circumstances found the joke distasteful.

Funny how half the audience groans and the other half laughs.

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

The credit crunch is not Gordon Brown's fault . Recession is cyclical, always has been. It was going to happen. To be honest in these dire times what else can he do? I don't think it was that bad. It's all the petty fuss about unimportant things that means that politics has got so tied up in spin. Just let him get on with his job.

[Upwind]

Dances - we are more exposed to the credit crunch than most other countries because of Gordon Brown's policies. He should be accountable for that.

[edam]

I'm sure it was mildly amusing if you were there. I'm more concerned about the news that my appalling, council stuck £17m in one of the Icelandic banks that has failed. No doubt the loss will be charged to us in our already-extortionate council tax bills.

He does share responsibility for the recession - he was Chancellor for a decade, fgs.

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

Ok. Which policies specifically?

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

He can share the responsibility as can the hundreds of thousands of people who took on mortgages they couldn't afford to repay because they were caught up in the boom market. I would defy ANYONE to have been able to stop this though.

[Piffle]

I think otherwise
There will be spectacular casualitie but think the uk is better placed than many.
That's instinct btw not knowledge speaking
< crosses fingers and prays>
I laughed

[singingtree]

I thought it was mildly funny too, tho it was flogged to death by the BBC.

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

This is the problem - there will have been people in Gordon Brown's office who will have actually spent time discussing how to 'handle' this. Surely their time could be spent more effectively doing something to help the government!

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

• it's not actually THE problem...it just annoys me!

[Upwind]

No time to write much, but one of the more obvious examples is the tripartite system for ensuring financial stability, which actually made no institution properly accountable.

Measures should have been introduced to stop the credit bubble getting as bad as it did and causing the hyperinflation of property prices. Common-sense regulation and some prudence during the boom years would have put us in a better postion for the inevitable downturn.

[CoteDAzur]

What is wrong with 'discussing how to handle' a crisis?

Do you prefer the George W. Bush brand of action, i.e. "I don't have to consider alternative strategies, I go with my gut feeling"?

[southutsire]

Gordon promised "no more boom and bust", thus demonstrating less grasp of economics than a GCSE pupil.

Gordon then takes credit for ensuing boom, while encouraging irresponsibile financial practices, calling it "unprecedented growth and economic stability".

When everything goes wrong, Gordon tuts at the mess the rest of the world got us into and claims to be the only one who can get us out of it.

He can't have it both ways.

[artichokes]

The No. 10 staff engaged in 'discussing how to handle a crisis' are not the ones equipt, trained or able to make policy decisions about how to help.

Their time would most definitly not be better used on high level economic policy, the thought makes me shudder.

[throckenholt]

the bottom line it the banks (globally) leant lots of money to people who could not afford to borrow it.

The fault is on 3 counts:

people borrowing more than they can afford
banks lending people more than they can afford
deregulated system that lets banks lend as above.

[pooka]

I actually think that the government are dealing pretty well with the whole situation.

[MadamePlatypus]

So what economic policy would have seen Britain buck the trend and sail off into the sunset in economic tranquility while the rest of the world battles out the economic turbulence. How is North Korea doing? Would complete isolation have worked?

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

LOL artichokes, I didn't mean they could be making policy just doing something rather than spending their hours discussing Gordon's joke.

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

LOL artichokes, I didn't mean they could be making policy just doing something rather than spending their hours discussing Gordon's joke (like making tea for the high level economists ).

[DANCESwithLordPsGhost]

OOps! Double post - interupted by pooing ds!