Hubris

Gordon Brown's amazing ability to not answer questions is starting to look like he's hiding something. If you've the stomach for it, spend a half hour wading through the latest version from last week at PM Questions

At about 4 minutes in, he's promising jobs for people who lose them. Let's put this in context.

Say I've brought home a box with six cakes inside. I've not made them myself, they're extracted from my hard earned salary. Now that I've eaten a cake from a box it's gone; putting back the empty wrapper doesn't replace it, nor does it make it look like there are still six cakes in the box. In order to replace the cake, I'm going to need to make another. Without the basic ingredients, such as a manufacturing base that's run by the private sector and generating more cakes, I'm not going to be able to do so. The biggest problem is that it's not just me who wants more cakes, there are at least 50 other people looking for them. As the country loses the ability to make cakes there are fewer available and still more people looking for them. That will be around 3.5 million people looking for new cakes this time next year. Not something that this country will want to see.

On the extension of lending; Gordon's very confused on what he's asking our banks to do. He's saying "keep up the 2007 levels" but wants them to fill the 1/3rd gap left behind without specifying how we, the tax payer, are going to cover this. He also acknowledges that those Johnny Foreigner's who lent too much and now left the country are gone. So what's it going to be Gordon? Are our banks lending at 2007 levels? Probably. Can they plug the gaps of the others? No. Are there any details in the plans to solve the problems? According to Gordon, it requires additional consultation with the banks involved. In summary then, Gordon, you don't have a clue, do you?

In one fell swoop, Gordon's scared the pants off the market by stating that he has a solution to the problem without knowing what exactly is the problem. No wonder the UK stock market is crashing around our ears.

Finally, the Rt Hon. D Skinner's Tory Fat Cats jibe is priceless. Remind me, who is Sir Fred Goodwin again? That's right, he's Scottish banker who knows the current PM as well being on chummy terms with both the former PM and Chancellor and was knighted by Labour for "services to banking".

Hubris indeed.