You may have (had) Brown; we've been having the "benefit" of the Euro for almost 10 years now. I doubt that Mr. Brown has been more expensive to the UK than the Euro would have been.
Had you observed at first hand the decimation of the British pension industry as well as a brace of other hopeless fiscal non-measures at his hands as Chancellor of the Exchequer, you would come to realise that Brown's record is not much better than that of Euroland. It's true that the very mixed economies of the Euroland nations is (and always was) bound to enhance the difficulties that the currency would have, but despite Brown having only one currency to mess up, he did us so proud by having gotten the country in such a parlous state during that Chancellorship that he decided to sell off a large tranche of the nation's gold reserves - and at a time when the price was low, too - and we're
still massively in debt!
The Netherlands has recently put €5 BILLION into Greece due to that country's phantasy economy (but we are not to worry, we will be getting it back with 5% annual cummulative interest. Such will happen in the year that Easter and Christmas will fall on the same date), and just today I've heard Euro-land will make (how??) a reserve of almost half a TRILLION Euro's in case some other countries with, let us say, imaginative ways to do economy have various versions of shat hitting various fans. Oh, and the people here will face dire economic measures because of some economic crises, so we will need to tighten our expenses. Could become an interesting show, since we've got elections coming up. Rockhard promises made of hot butter, no doubt! "Believe me, trust me, have a little faith in me", and so on and so forth!
Well, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has insisted that Britain will only get caught for a maximum of £8bn of that £500bn and even that only in the case of 100% default, so to that extent the outgoing Labour party here has been able to do something useful, even if in terms only of damage limitation; just as well, really, however, since Britain's own indebtedness would almost certainly cause it to default on any commitment much greater than that were it ever called upon to make one...
I heard an economist just last Friday who gives the Euro 5 most years at most.
I have heard several that question whether it will last out this year.
Whatever Brown did, at least he didn't bring you the blessings of the Euro. You may have Brown out, we're going to a blackout if things are left to rot more, which no doubt they will be.
We may well have the same, actually, since the problems of the indebtedness that I mentioned are now compounded for the time being by the instability that inevitably results from the uncertainties arising from there being no government sworn in five days after the General Election took place and the grave doubts that any coalition can be made to work for more than a few months at a time when there is so much work for a government to do that it will need more than a full term in office even to begin it. Of course we may hear today or tomorrow if the Liberal Democrats do agree to a coalition with the Conservatives (or, less likely, with Labour) but, if neither materialises, the only way a government could be sworn in this week would be if the Conservatives took the very risky decision to try to go it alone as a minority government and, so far, only the media - not the party itself - has speculated on that even less likely possibility. If all three options fail, there'll be only one thing to do - and it will look sufficiently bizarre as to deaden the already dwindling international confidence in Britain as a country capable even of electing a government, let alone benefitting from good strong one; this will be for Brown, an unelected Prime Minister and leader of a party that has suffered the worst losses in last week's election, to call another General Election after he has already announced his resignation! How's that going to look from anywhere outside Britain? What will be even worse still, however, is if a second General Election produces a similarly inconclusive result, for it will then be even harder for a coalition to be formed. I suspect that the sheer sense of desperation that such a scenario might pertain will alone be sufficient to force a coalition of some kind this time around, though the persistent question then will inevitably be "how long might it last?".
Best,
Alistair
Topic: Brown Out