Germans not ready to be saved
“Germany attacks Gordon Brown,” the rags screamed, as Angela Merkel’s finance minister laid into the prime minister’s economic rescue plan, lambasting it as “crude Keynesianism”. While Balls was on hand to repel the assault, those bloggers weren’t convinced.
The libertarians over at Samizdata had sympathy with Herr Steinbrück this week – refreshing our economic history in the process. Johnathan Pearce wrote:
“It makes me wonder whether Germany, mindful of what happened in the hyper-inflation of the 1920s, is worried that sooner or later, the vast amounts of money being hurled at the economies in the West, such as in Britain, will produce a sharp rise in inflation and that ever-higher borrowing will only prolong, but not halt, the current pain.”
Meanwhile Tory councillor Imtiaz Ameen reckoned that the week’s developments sound the death knell on Brown’s claims to be leading a global consensus, posing the question:
“Will Brown now reply to questions by saying that all the big economies are advocating fiscal measures except the Tories and Europe’s biggest economy and the world’s leading exporter?”
Just a day before this Teutonic onslaught, Brown had informed the House (and a watching nation) that he had “saved the world,” a slip which the merciless blogosphere eagerly seized upon. A “Freudian slip” adjudged Guido, but Labour supporter Peter Kenyon thought it a justifiable claim, explaining:
“In the light of what we know from the Governor of the Bank of England, the state of the world banking system was extremely fragile despite US efforts to buy up toxic assets until GB stepped in with a bank recapitalisation plan. So I have no problem with his remarks.”
Finally, the occasionally pithy ThunderDragon noted that German mockery of our government is apparently endless…
What have we learned this week?
The results of the Private Members Ballot for backbench bills were released on Thursday. The Liberal Democrats came out well from the ballot (and they need something to cheer them up, if Andrew Rawnsley’s Politics Home analysis is accurate) with affable Somerset optician David Heath coming in second place and keen secularist Dr Evan Harris in fifth.
Lib Dem goth Jennie was pleased by the news and urged Harris to use his lucky break to push pro-choice causes. “Get rid of the Two Doctors rule, Evan! Go on, you know you want to!” she implored.
Around the World
To Greece, where this handy slideshow entitled ‘Youth Revolt, Rebellion and Uprising’ surmised much of the anger and chaos that has followed the shooting dead of a 15 year old by the Greek police.
It isn’t the first time that the Greek police have prompted online ire – perhaps reviving memories of the arrest of Antonis Tsipropoulos two years ago. Tsipropoulos was alleged to have slandered a nutty TV evangelist; his arrest leading to a series of protests, though on a somewhat less epically violent scale.
Video of the Week
A treat to warm us in this unhappy winter, December by the Waterboys, whose Old England was among the most quietly brilliant satires on Thatcherite Britain.
Quote of the Week
“Anybody else would have made a joke of it. But Gordon just kept on like a very humourless steamroller.”
Chicken Yoghurt suggests that the prime minister might like to lighten up.
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