Archives » Monday, February 18, 2008
-
Stryker McGuire
|
Feb 18, 2008 11:39 AM
He was known, more than anything else, for his supposed economic
competence. So what was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown doing
standing before the TV cameras today and announcing the nationalization
of Northern Rock, a failed mortgage lender? It's a complicated story,
but as Brown rightly said it all leads back to the sub-prime mortgage
crisis in the United States. Still the Northern Rock affair, which has
now forced the government to pull the trigger on what it calculated all
along was the worst possible option, has been badly handled by Brown's
Labour government since the debacle came to light last August. The
"£100 Billion Gamble With Your Cash" takeover (as the Daily Mail put
it) is the first nationalization in Britain since the bad old days of
1970s. Back then the Labour Party dug its own political grave and paved
the way for Margaret Thatcher through its association with punishingly
high taxes, steep unemployment and a plague of strikes. Brown knew that
to nationalize the Rock would recall those times and threaten to
undermine all that "New" Labour had done to rebrand itself as
business-friendly and an ally, not an enemy, of mammoth financial
interests in the City of London. As he ended the press conference and
headed back to his office, Brown could be deemed fortunate in only one
respect: he doesn't have to call an election for another two years.
More
Loading Menu
