Gordon Brown's 10 worst financial gaffes

In 2006, an eloquent Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he was "ready to make the decisions for people and to work with other people to make this country the great country it is at all times." A year later he became Prime Minister, and the rest is history. Here is a list of Gordon's worst financial blunders, the screw-ups which have cost us all dearly and left economists, accountants and the rest of us scratching our heads in disbelief. Vote for Gordon's worst gaffe in the e-Poll below or make your own suggestions in the comment box.

1. Taxing dividend payments

Before 1997, dividends issued by UK companies and paid to pension funds were tax-free - that is, the tax could be claimed back via a system of tax credits. Not any more, decided Brown. Tax relief was scrapped, reducing the amount collected by pension funds by around £5 billion a year. Pension funds holding the cash that you, me and almost everyone else in the country plan to use for our retirement have lost around £100 billion over the last 12 years. That's one hell of a stealth tax.

2. Selling our gold

In May 1999 Gordon Brown had a plan to sell some gold. There were two problems with this, which concerned his economic advisers deeply. The price of gold had slumped after a decade of stagnation, but was likely to increase in the proceeding years. Added to this, the announcement of a major sell-off would drive the price down further. Little of this worried Gordon. Experts believe that the poorly timed decision to flog our national treasure has cost us all around £3 billion. Granted, that doesn't seem much nowadays, but more of that later.

3. Tripartite financial regulation

The system of financial regulation dividing powers between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, established by Brown as Chancellor in 2000, missed what amounted to the biggest financial crisis of our lifetime. Whoops. This has led some glass-half-empty commentators to conclude that the system set up by Brown failed and should be replaced. The Commons Treasury Select Committee’s report on the collapse of Northern Rock said that the Financial Services Authority had “systematically failed in its duty” to oversee the troubled bank’s activities. Little did it realise at the time that Northern Rock was the over-leveraged tip of the securitised iceberg.  

4. Tax credits

 “Gordon Brown claims the tax credits system lifts children out of poverty,” says Simon Blackmore, 38, who was pursued for £6,057 in over-paid tax credits. “Maybe it does, but only to plunge them and their families into debt two years later.” Millions of low-income families have had to pay back the Treasury after receiving too much money in tax credits, putting them under huge financial and emotional strain. Meanwhile, 40 per cent of workers and families who deserved tax credits left billions of pounds unclaimed in the 2008-09 tax year for fear of being chased for the cash later on. Introduced in 1999, reformed in 2000, tax credits have been "a complete disaster zone", according to tax experts.

5. The £10,000 corporation tax threshold

In 2002, Gordon Brown introduced a new tax regime to help small businesses. He announced a new zero per cent rate of corporation tax on profits below £10,000. It was designed to boost the ability of small businesses to grow and prosper. It didn't quite work out this way. It became advantageous for sole traders such as taxi drivers or plumbers to turn themselves into limited companies to take advantage of the new rules. A Treasury Minister later commented that "the Government did not realise how many people would engage in abusive tax avoidance", despite the fact that it was "blindingly obvious" to tax experts "within 5 seconds" of the budget announcement that this would happen. Gordon scrapped the rules a few years later, raising the rate from 0 per cent to 19 per cent when he released how much money was being lost.

6. Abolition of the 10p tax rate

Mr Brown rarely apologises. In fact, he never apologises. But occasionally he acknowledges "mistakes", albeit begrudgingly. Over the abolition of the 10p tax rate in 2007, Mr Brown told Radio 4's Today programme that "we made two mistakes. We didn't cover as well as we should that group of low-paid workers who don't get the working tax credits and we weren't able to help the 60 to 64-year-olds who didn't get the pensioner's tax allowance." Experts use stronger language to describe the Budget of 2007, which was designed to produce positive headlines for the 2p cut in income tax. Accountants calculated that the scrapping of the 10 per cent tax rate, coupled with the increase in the proportion of tax credits withdrawn from higher earners, would leave 1.8 million workers earning between £6,500 and £15,000 paying an effective tax rate of up to 70 per cent.

7. Failing to spot the housing bubble

Gordon Brown said he ended boom and bust, and in those innocent days before the collapse of the global finance system we believed him. In 1997, he outlined his plans. "Stability is necessary for our future economic success", he wisely informed an audience at the CBI. "The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management." The other components of that bedrock including a trillion-pound debt mountain and a decade of unchecked and unparalleled house price inflation presumably slipped his mind. In 2003 a mild-mannered Liberal Democrat MP by the name of Vince Cable dared to question the mantra of "the end of boom and bust". He asked Gordon Brown: "Is it not true that...the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?" Gordon replied: "The Honourable Gentleman has been writing articles in the newspapers, as reflected in his contribution, that spread alarm, without substance, about the state of the economy..." We all know what happened next.

8. 50 per cent tax rate

Robert Chote, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said the tax hike which heralded the end the new Labour may actually end up losing the Government money. "If you look at what happened when higher rates were last changed in the 1980s, that might lead you to suggest that such a move might actually lose you revenue, rather than gain it, as people actually declare less income for tax," he said.

9. Cutting VAT

"It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious," said a tax accountant when asked about the Brown-Darling brainwave to cut VAT by 2.5 percentage points. As a nation of shoppers, rather than shopkeepers, a chopped down sales tax sounds like a good idea, providing a vital boost to hard-pressed families at a time of financial hardship. There were two problems. It costs £12.5 billion a year and it has made little discernable difference to those hard-pressed families because it is shopkeepers, rather than shoppers, who have pocketed much of the benefit.

10. Public-sector borrowing

If Gordon had only saved a little more in the good times, we might have had a little more to fall back on in the bad, economists sigh. Last month saw public-sector net borrowing hit £19.9 billion, the highest on record, according to the Office for National Statistics. The chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, has forecast that Government borrowing will reach £175 billion this year. It is forecast that total government debt will double to 79 per cent of GDP by 2013, the highest level since World War 2. Mr Chote recently warned that "the scale of the underlying problem that the Treasury’s detailed forecasts identify will require two full parliaments of mounting austerity to repair.” 

Even after he leaves office in 2010, as is almost certain, it seems that we will all be paying for Gordon's gaffes for many years to come.

By James Charles

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Comments

[Ian, London]

I've spent most of my working life paying off Labour's legacy from the 1960s and 1970s; and I'm going to spend the remainder of my working life paying for their latest spree. Before I can start paying I'll have to find a new job, of course, because my employer went bust and I'm now out of work.

Gordon Brown has been a disaster for this country. His legacy is an economy ruined by incompetence, mismanagement and unsustainable debt. No wonder he could only persuade less than 5% of the electorate to vote for him in the recent elections.

[Peter Turner]

Looks like Jilted John was right!

[Dave Pritchard]

You, Charles, like all political and economic commentators are a bunch of lily-livered fops. All the above was blindingly obvious the instant after it was announced yet all of you sat back and let it roll over us like a plague without so much as a murmur. How many articles are there out there commending Brown's stupidity at the time? We have come to expect such toadying from the BBC and I doubt that will change anytime soon but it's nice to see honest straightforward critique returning to the press again.

[Payday]

The tax threshold for corporate taxes make good revenues for economy!

[D Colclough]

Rather pathetic to try so hard to discredit a leader who has worked tirelessly for the good of the country with - overall - very positive results. Grow up.

[Ian, London]

D COLCLOUGH - Are you serious? "Very positive results"? Do you have any idea of how much trouble this country is in? As a nation we owe about 4 times our national income. If you have a salary of, say, £35,000 and owe other people £140,000 would you call that a, "very positive result"? Do you have any idea how long it will take to pay that off?

[JF]

You have missed (in no particular order):

increasing employer NI contributions, thus discouraging employment

increasing stamp duty on higher value houses, thus encouraging buyers to over-leverage themselves in order to skip a step on the housing ladder and avoiding paying stamp more than once

the Iraq war

constant changes in corporation tax rules, thus encouragign our major companies to move their domiciles overseas

[Graham Seed]

"Prudent" - what a joke.

Tell a lie enough times, people actually start to believe it.

Brown has been the worst chancellor the UK has ever known and promoted to be the worst prime minister the country has ever known.

He and his party have zero vision and non-existent economic policy.

I recently came across the following website, which is worth checking out [I have no association with the site]:

http://www.clunkingfist.co.uk

[Bill]

Not down to Brown but let's not forget Blair surrendering our EU rebate a few years ago. How many more billions has that cost us? And the benefit - nothing whatsoever other than the French carried on hoovering up the CAP money.

[mike]

A very one sided report. Have you forgotten that this is the man that got us out of the boom and bust cycle and then went on to organise the saving of the world economy. Shame on you!

[Austin Tassletine]

Vince Cable may have predicted the property bubble in 2003 but the Cambridge Econometrics Centre in 2001 said they were 21 % overvalued vis a vis salary.

[peter charles]

Funny , everything he has done is wrong, yet statically he is the most successful Chancellor ever. Growth, inflation unemployment all better than previous Tory admin.

All better than other G7 countries. Even now this counter is doing better than most others during this countries.

Still Journalist know best.

[Jason, Edinburgh]

We should set up a penal colony on St Kilda where Mr Brown and colleagues can perform penance and reflect on the damage they have done to this once great country and its people.

This is no less than they deserve.

It will take about 3 generations for the country to recover. It took 60 years to pay back the WW2 debt.

[Nick]

"9. Cutting VAT "

You have missed the point. By cutting VAT Labour have manipulated both RPI and CPI figures to justify near zero interest rates.

If VAT had not been cut inflation would appear much higher than it does now and rates would have to be raised.

By reducing rates to near zero the losses of the banks and the over-indebted are being socialized by those with savings.

This was actually a rather devious and nasty, but very effective and clever, gaffe.

[Peter]

In reply to Peter Charles and the article generally

The housing bubble and its effects have not been yet laid to rest

Once it has finally ended after they have stopped meddling trying to prop it up, then the true picture will emerge

[Straight talker]

I'm glad that several other readers share my disappointment in the thrust of this article. A sincere thank you, Gordon, for all you have done for the British people.

[Patrick O'Farrell]

I'm at a loss to understand why these ten disastrous fiscal blunders of Gordon Brown are not front page news in The Times so as to highlight the failures of his 12 years in office. He has contributed enormously to the financial downfall of our country. The sad thing is he doesn't even see it or his woeful party.

[Dave]

My family and I, have suffered so much, and lost so much money, from the Labour Partys ill considered and disastrously concieved, policies over the last decade, [It felt like they had singled us out, at every opportunity, and put the boot in as hard as they could] and all I can say is that I truly Hate the Labour Party with a real passion.

Ten years ago I had no interest in politics

[B D Clarke]

Brown has been a disaster & a complete waste of space. No wonder Blair was so reluctant to let him take over as PM. Pity Blair didn't have the guts to sack him after his first set of apalling errors as chancellor!

[Mattwi]

It's so depressing. The whole housing boom, I'm sure they saw it coming, (and going), but the good times meant they got re-elected again. Would it have been any different under a tory government? It seems it's just part of the nature of the beast politic. Making decisions that seem prudent and stingy in good times, will soften the bad times, but won't be popular, and besides, with the expenses scandal, it's obvious that many of them are very out of touch with ordinary folk like us.

[P Farnsworth]

As Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said;

"Socialists eventually run out of other people's money".

[Chris Roland]

This is painful to read, but good to see a blow-by-blow acct. If only this was better publicised...

[Geoffrey]

I don't object to The Times having a political stance, and people having their say about politics, but please could Money Central stick to information and advice about personal finance that is of practical use?

[RH]

I cannot believe some of the comments i am reading here, and it makes me despair that some of you are actually allowed to vote.

People like D Colclough and peter charles honestly make my blood boil, to the point where i actually think you might be being sarcastic in your responses. Brown has been an unmitigated disaster as both Chancellor and PM - to the person who says he ended boom and bust, i really can't begin to imagine how you'd actually try and back that statement up?? To people like you and Peter Charles, i suggest you re-read point 10 - Britain benefited from a global boom (the flipside of the global bust that Brown, Darling and no doubt the likes of you are so quick to blame for the current woes), but the lack of any kind of foresight by Brown meant that we have been left with absolutely no provisions for the inevitable 'bust'.

Why are some people simply blind to what is happening around them?? Brown has been a disaster for our economy, and the rest of us will be paying for his mistakes for years

[carolyn]

..'Meanwhile, 40 per cent of workers and families who deserved tax credits left billions of pounds unclaimed in the 2008-09 tax year for fear of being chased for the cash later on.' - don't believe a word of this.

[paul reed]

Peter Charles dont know what statistics you've been reading. Growth was driven by the large influx of foreign workers. GDP/Capita has hardly budged. Employment- driven almost entirely by massive expansion in the Public Sector- an easy trick. Inflation? Thank the Chinese for cheap imports and Greenspan for a weak dollar.

[steve tea]

11) Brown didn't know the meanining of prudence.
12) Brown does not understand what sub-prime is.
13)Brown a legend in his own mind.

Clarkson was right.

[JFW]

A trainee ecconomist could have done better withohut trying.

Banks with no leadership or control.

Remember there can only be one captain of the ship not three

Each able to blame the other a simple thing to learn and remember.

But what do you expect from a man who's sneaky ways slid him in to number 10 without the backing of this country.

Shame be on him.

[Daniel Meeks]

I would disagree with point no 7.
My own LABOUR MP, got her daughter to get the mortgage on the Westminster flat, [Daughter lived and worked in Yorkshire, and used the flat for holidays!]
My LABOUR MP, then got her daughter to sell, flipped the property at peak for a quick £200k profit. Then bought and sold again. Our Mps under Browns rules became nothing more than property speculators.
Im not saying it was planned. But this is the result:
LABOURS complete lack of banking regulation, combined with such easy money, is proof that; no-one in power wanted houses to be affordable. If they had told us that in 1998, we would have bought!

Instead Brown Stated 'I will not let house prices get out of control'

Under Labour there was NEVER any Political Will to help a person earning an average wage, to get onto the housing ladder.

That is LABOURS legacy. Weve wasted tens of thousands in rent. And for what? Nothing. Hosues will come all the way back down, and Many Many Ministers, will walk away with hundreds of thousands of pounds in profit. Thats the real money they must pay back. [Of course they will not.]
I hope you all burn in h3ll

All we we ever wanted was to be able to afford a small house, yet LABOUR completely destroyed that aspiration.
Yet they still have the unbelieveable gaul to post flyers through my door, stating Labour are the only party to help poor people?

I hate Labour. Truly.

[Marcel]

People bang on about hating Labour (it's pretty sad, guys, just chill) but can you imagine the state we'd be in if the Tories had one in 97??

Mr Colclough has it right!

[Colin]

with regards to point 10: what is even more worrying, is that the forecast £175mill of borrowing does not include the PFI debt that brown has hidden as "off balance sheet" for years. A tactic he derided as lacking transparency when the banks did it.
Politics and policy aside, the man is dishonest!

[Janet]

D. Colclough - Are you an MP? Because it is only them who have gained under the Labour Government by fiddling money out of the public purse via rules they have set for themselves.

We are a couple without dependants near to retirement and I can honestly say we have never been worse off in our lives. We should have been looking forward to some comfort and pensions to bolster and support our latter years left. Instead we have spent 10 years trying to prop up a ghastly state pension that the government even now don't want us to have until we are in our pine box and all investments have failed through Brown's leadership.

I can't get over the depth of anger we have for his mismanagement and the sorrow I feel for the depressing future for my grandchildren who will ultimately be paying the price for generations to come for his stupidity !

[Robin]

No Marcel, Mr Colclough has it wrong! So, very wrong!
After a complete waste of space such as John Major I thought 'New' Labour might deliver something better - boy was that wishful thinking!
Add to 'the 10' the various points that others on this board have already added and it's really impossible to ignore the level of incompetence, deceit & dishonesty exhibited by GB & the Labour party.
You must be truly oblivious to the world around you.
I think the TB/GB Dream Team will cost Labout at least 2, if not 3, terms in office.
As for Straight Talker; you obviously had a long look in the mirror & decided against 'Straight Thinker'- very sensible!

[John, Manchester]

Who will have a pension worth living for after the 1997 raid on tax credits on dividends. What has been done has completely made doing any pension plan completley worthless as you will be taxed in retirement on any income you may have above what is left of the state pension. Also remember what has happened to endowement policies with this goverment and all those people who had hoped they would clear there mortgages (well they had been doing for years).

This government is not for the working man who is trying for a better life and wanting financial security but is one that sees us as a cash cow for the state

[Evan Owen]

The whole of politics is bust, it matters not which colour rosette they wear, what they promise or the lies they tell, they are all letting the electorate down because they don't have a clue how to run UK PLC.

[Ian, France]

Before reading the comments of D. Colclough, Peter Charles et al, it puzzled me that twenty-something percent of the population still planned to vote Labour. What were these people thinking?

Now I understand completely; thinking is a higher brain function that takes a certain effort. Blindly believing comforting lies is so much easier.

Fools, sheep, saps; Brown despises you as much as the rest of us.

[derek french]

mr brown inherited his problems from previous leaders and has tried very hard to get things wright which he has done to his credit. yes things arent perfect but thats just a global phenomena that we cannot sadly avoid. i wouldd like to see all the people here like ian in france who are being criticaldoing a better job!

[abraham]

The gold sale was a favour to President Clinton, to keep the price down long enough to see his term out. the flip side of a low gold price is a strong dollar. Notice the "brown bottom" was also the dollar top? Brown and Clinton didnt care about a bit of gold, they cared about reaserting the dollar as the global reserve currency. This is no secret, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan announced it publicly. Check the gold anti trust comittee or GATA for full details. They have a web site.

[The Haunted]

Finally someone else is seeing what I have been saying for years "This man could not find his own back side with both hands". What I find really worrying is that there are still people willing to support him. It begs believe that anyone could see this man as anything more than the worste chancelor this country has had and is ever likely to have. Wake up!

[Gary Whitney]

If only there were only 10 blunders!
What about the public sector cost which are now a black hole with huge waste, off balance sheet PFI liabilities running well over £150 Billion plus huge unfunded public sector pension obligatons.

[Ian, France]

'You can fool some of the people all the time', as they say. Welcome to the ship of fools, Derek French; next please.

As for me (or anyone else) doing a better job, complete inaction over the last 12 years would have been far better.

[Max]

As to (1), Brown faced the choice of (a) defying EC law, (b) making all such tax credits available to all EU citizens holding shares in UK resident companies at great cost to the Treasury, or (c) scrap them.

[Peter East]

Ian France. you are quite correct, postings like the one from Mr D French, back up your statement.
The problem is, that while things are bad Mr Brown, and others keep calling it a `global' problem.
As soon as any kind of improvement starts to show up, it will no doubt cease to be `global', and Mr Brown will no doubt grab onto it, stating that the improvement is entirely down to him, would`nt be global then! would it?

[ed]

Brown has taxed 100 billion from the savings people made for their old age,driving thousands into poverty as pensioners.How much has he taxed those funds which will pay his own pension? ZERO.

[Geoff]

What about IR35? The country has lost hundreds of millions of tax revenue as thousands of contractors have moved to offshore umbrella companies.

[Austin Tassletine]

Dave and Daniel.

Sorry you can't absolve yourself from responsibility as well. First they came for... (Pastor Neirmuller)? You voted for them.

Things! Can only get better (and better and better and better for us, the political classes).Eh?

[Petey]

History will vindicate the New Labour Project.

The other commentators here will do a Blears - slam Brown, then crawl back cap-in-hand when they realise how foolish they've been

[Laura Borg]

Re. 7 You're being too generous for Brown DID spot the housing bubble, he just thought he had beaten it. Brown's speeach to the Labour conference in 2005,

"Why has it been that at every point since 1997 faced with the Asian crisis, the IT collapse, a stock exchange crash, an American recession, last year a house price bubble, this year rising world oil prices, why has it been that at every point since 1997 Britain uniquely has continued to grow?

In any other decade, a HOUSE PRICE BUBBLE would have pushed Britain from boom to bust.

In any other decade, a doubling of oil prices would have put Britain first in last out and worst hit by a world downturn.

I tell you, it is because with Bank of England independence, cutting debt, fiscal discipline and the New Deal this Labour government has shown the strength to take the tough long-term decisions, that inflation is low, interest rates are low, growth has been sustained in every year, and we are closer than ever to the goal which drives us forward: the goal of full employment for our generation.

Labour, the natural party for economic strength in our country today.”

[Niall Firinne]

He was lucky though that he followed the best Chancellor in recent years and benefited by a prosperous era that masked his disasters. Problem is that his luck ran out!

[John Harrison]

It is worth remembering that Lamont's changes cost pension funds a similar amount.
Also that tax changes by Nigel Lawson cost pension funds an indeterminate, but huge, amount.
Nor will these be the last changes to the detriment of pension unds.

[James]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGB_3wByafA

[Andrew Sullivan]

What a load of old bull.

Not one of these so-called gaffes has anything to do with the overall structure of the UK economy, which is at the heart of today's economic gloom.

THATCHER made the UK a NON-SAVINGS economy. She got people OUT of work, and put their livelihoods into the hands of dodgy banks and company directors.

[Lucy Scales]

Spot on, Andrew Sullivan. Today's crisis is 100% a Tory legacy.

[Philip]

Andrew Sullivan, please reread points 3 and 7, which relate to the structure of the UK economy, specifically the bit that went wrong - he allowed the debt levels to rise and removed the overseers of those levels. Then reread points 2 and 5, which relate to the economy's ability to weather such a storm. 8 and 10 perpetuate what 2 and 5 have done. 4 and 6 affected personal finance, the population's ability to respond to the financial crisis. 1 affected both pensioners and pension funds, which coupled with the lack of overseeing of debt on those funds (point 3 again) meant banks drew from personal savings and re-established the link that did for the USA at the end of the 20's. Point 8 then disadvantaged small businesses as firstly it costs to relabel your stock (twice as it was a temporary move) and secondly, the economies of scale means the superstores will be able to squeeze more out of the VAT rate than a newsagent's, for example. None of that was done by the Conservatives, who have after all been out of office for more than a decade without any hand on the tiller of the economy. Unless I was just dreaming in 1997 when Labour won a landslide? I wish. I know Labour still act as if they were the opposition in 1996, but I really thought their supporters would realise that this isn't actually the case and it is they who hold the responsibilities of office three parliamentary terms down the line...

[A Walton]

Brown,along with Blair are now creating one crises after another.
Today a financial crises, in the future,there is a Housing and a pension crises waiting. It will be debatable which will cause the most civil disobedience. Labour have lost over million manufacturing jobs and replace them with useless public sector jobs. It is a good job, that there is less than year for these fools. Brown will be another example of rewarding failure.

[David.]

Gordon Brown and New Labour have been like the ten plagues of Egypt on the UK.

1.] In Browns 1997 raid, They stole six figures from my fathers pension
2.] I too,have not been able to afford my own property for almost 9 years. Forced to rent.
3.] I am now unemployed because of the recession that Labour are directly responsible for. Browns Boom and Bust. Paying thousands upon thouands more rent out of savings.
4.] Family member with Cancer, we had a nightmarish time with Ambulances not turning up, waiting lists, incompetent administrators. Cancelled operations.
Unbelievably stressful for the family. [Docs and nurses,a nd marie curie were great I must add]
5.] My Council Taxes, Gas Bills, Rent, have increased to ridiculos levels over the last 7-8 years.
6.] According to Taxpayers Alliance, average persons tax has increased by 51% in the last ten years!!!
7.] All of the above ten reasons listed in the article.
8.] Labour government lied to take us into an illegal war. Result:
Over one hundred thousand innocent civilians murdered, in Iraq by Blairs lie. [And no accountability at all.]
9.]Erosion of civil liberties, state becoming truly menacing now.Police can shoot and kill you, and get away with it.
10.]Loads of smaller tax increases, sneakily introduced over the last decade. I.E cannot claim VAT back on Company Cars. Cannot reclaim 100% on certain Capital expenditures if your a small business, many many others.
11.] Baron Mandelson
Perfect example of Labours philosophy of no personal accountability. Never forget him walking out of the millenium dome ranting about it all being the british peoples fault that it had failed!!!
Wants to control all traffic on the internet. Destroy freedom of speech.

I dont want public servants to enter office to become multi millionaires. [The present expenses system was Labours idea]

The list of Labours damage and incompetence goes on and on and on

Labour have devasted many people in this country. And its the poorest who have suffered most, and Labour who have made us all much poorer.
It beggars belief that people stick up for them.
New Labour should be utterly destroyed. And punished. Really punished.
Labour do not care a jot about the poorer, members of society.
If they did, why have they made it as difficult as it could possibly have been for most of us, for ten years now?

Labour have betrayed us all, and even now, continue to try to do more and more damage to the country.
Obviously they are keeping the housing market MASSIVELY artificially inflated. For political reasons. Because they hope people on morgage holidays will vote for them!

Our childrens childrens children will be born into the debt their disastrous incompetence has created.

[As to the Thatcher comments. Brown invited her into No10, in 2007/2008 and tried to pass himself off as her successor!]

The constant Lies and Spin.

Labour are now a completely hollow and dead party. Never Ever again can we afford to let them into power.

[The Haunted]

I've just been looking at the list again and in fairness I need to challenge No7. Failing to spot the housing bubble.

This is of course nonsense. Not only did Brown spot the bubble but he created and activley encouraged it. Worse still he is trying to keep house prices inflated because he knows full well that once they fall drastically(and they will) that even the idiots who have posted on here supporting him and Liebour will turn coat.

I'm not advocating a conservative government, but I would even consider voting BNP rather than labour if that were my only choice.

PS: If anyone from the government is reading this "STOP SPENDING MY MONEY ON BUSINESSES THAT ARE GOING TO FAIL ANYWAY!"

[arthur]

Don't some of you at The Times know a gaff from a gaffe? I'm sure Libby Purves can enlighten you.

[Peter Charles]

You make not like my comments, but sit back and think about them.

Most commentates and opposition politicians have opposed nearly every move he has made. If they were right and everything he did was terrible. Surely there would have been runaway inflation, low growth and mass unemployment.

Yet the opposite has happened we have had unparreled above trend growth and low inflation.

The other G7 countries would have outperformed the UK year after year, yet again the opposite has happened the UK has performed well above average.

It's a bit like a so called " expert football pundit " disagreeing with every move Alex Ferguson makes and still insisting he is no good despite his success.

In Gordon Brown's case the success is more relative of course, but nerveless the raw stats of growth, unemployment and inflation cannot be disputed.

People will always say but this happened and tha happened so....
, but that is spin.

Strip away the spin, media bias and think about the un - spinned stats on the big 3. Growth, Inflation and Unemployment.

[UMA SHANKAR]

Unofficial Robin 'Brown' wood, who is NOT QUALIFIED to run even a cafe or fish & Chips shop. Let alone a country. But,.But, amzingly the British people are putting up with the sufferings caused by a clown and bunch of MP jokers!!

[benny]

THATCHER made the UK a NON-SAVINGS economy. She got people OUT of work, and put their livelihoods into the hands of dodgy banks and company directors. Posted by: Andrew Sullivan.

It's all Thatcher's fault isn't it Andrew? A PM who is still your hate figure 20 years after she left office. Every Labour term in office has always ended the same way - economic disaster and yet it's always someone elses fault isn't it? Your broken record is boring and frankly people see that lie for what it is. It is YOUR beloved Labour party who are in power - you can't blame the conservatives anymore although you would clearly like to. It is time you faced up to the endless list of Brown related disasters.

[hal satter]

PFI!

Nothing else comes close in terms of miserable cynicism and long term idiocy.

[James]

How about embarking on a career for which he was not at all suited? He made up economic policy as he was going along and has the political nous of a goldfish.

[James]

Thatcher's fault, eh? Funny, but I seem to recall that it's been Labour that has been in power for the last 12 years (more than enough time to sort out these apparent problems, surely) and Mrs T hasn't been in office for almost 2 decades. Might as well blame it all on Chamberlain or Lloyd George. Really, people like you shouldn't be let near a voting booth.

[Brian Warren]

Brown, seemingly, did a PhD in the history of the Labour Party and then went into politics. One wonders what possible experience apart from this, for instance, in business or management, he could possibly have had, to qualify him for the somewhat 'important' jobs of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister.

He was rather good at convincing a lot of people, and over a long period of time, that everything was effectively 'perfect' in his capable hands.
And look what has happened! Now we are in a mess of gigantic proportions. And he is still trying to convince us that he and he alone, can get us out of this mess he has put us in!

He is paid by the Pubic at large through taxation and is our employee - effectively a mamber of our staff. The Public should have the opportunity to exert more control over what goes on within the parliamentary system, to at least attempt to control the type of situation which is happening now.

[Napoleon XXIV]

You are forgetting the following and biggest gaffs of all:

• Going into politics.

• Becoming chancellor.

• Becoming PM.

• Believing he was up to the above.

[Robin]

Peter Charles.
I've have indeed sat back (more in amazement at your lack of understanding as to what's been going on these last 12 years than contemplation) and here's why I think you're wrong.
1. Growth - yes we have had growth these last 12 years but have you looked at why? UK has seen personal debt levels spiral to unsustainable levels as consumers borrow to purchase in an uncontrolled frenzy. The fact that that chick's returned to roost is exactly why we are experiencing the pain that we are. If GB were prudent & competent we would have had SUSTAINABLE growth not the type we have to give back when the party's over!
2. Inflation - the first thing that GB did as chancellor was to pass the remit for controlling inflation to the BoE. I'm afraid you can't claim credit on his behalf for lower inflation. In fact the people that should be thanked are the Emerging market economies who have produced for so long at low prices & bailed all western economies out!
3. Unemployment - well, leaving aside this govt's manipulation of what statistics are actually used to measure changes in employment, I would suggest that the employment structure of this nation is less healthy than when NuL came to power. Apart from the growth of part time jobs, the thing that NuL has achieved is to massively expand the public sector workforce. Unfortunately, unlike the private sector, the efficiency returns of this have been dismal as announced by the Office for National Statistics this month. The ONS reported that productivity in public services fell by 3.2 per cent overall in the decade after New Labour swept to power in 1997 - at an estimated cost of £19BILLION!!! In comparison private sector efficiency increased by around 23%. As David Smith, Economics Editor of The Times, points out: "if public-sector productivity had matched the private sector, we could have had the same level of public service but for almost £100 billion less than the £670 billion the government intends spending this year. We would still have a public-borrowing problem but it would pale into insignificance in comparison with the one we have".
Peter, your employment 'growth' has not been led by prudent & efficient allocation of resources but by political dogma & comes at a price that most people don't want to pay.

Lastly, I do think you should sit back and take a look at how things are panning out NOW as opposed to 2006. Growth - we are in a recession. Inflation - is heading back up now that cheap goods from the East are gone & we've pumped the economy with QE. Employment - what's the latest estimate, 3 million unemployed before it all plays out?
I think the stats that you're looking at are less 'raw' than 'cooked'!

[Pericles]

Since the inception of ZANU-Liebour The Times has been at the van of the press -- and other media -- supporting it ; now, as though butter wouldn't melt in its collective mouth, it brings forth all these critics of policies many of us were calling disastrous on their introduction.

[J Mendes]

Interesting that Labour's critics here have time to write such long rants.

We Gordon fans actually have jobs and lives, so don't.

[Larry]

Brown is incapable of pi--ing in a pot at point blank range. Get real all you Labour apologists. Brown is going down and he is taking you with him. Won't see you again for another 18 years (30 I hope).

[Nickoteen]

We haven't got to wait 'till 2010 have we?

[Nathan Hogg]

J Mendes, are you completely thick?

Weve all got better things to do!!

HAVENT YOU READ THESE COMMENTS?!!
DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE JUST MAKING THIS ANGER UP!!!!

Labour have spat on the country, squeezed, attacked and ignored us.
AND ALL FOR NO REASON!

My serious suggestion to the Labour Party is do not send canvassers out door to door........

[D Rudd]

Does "Petey" realise what a prat he sounds? "The New Labour project"??

Makes me quite nauseous.

[Jimmy R]

I'll put it more simply, Gordon Brown IS the ultimate financial gaffe. He hasn't got the financial intelligence to run a corner shop never mind the National Economy as, he has readily displayed.

In order to feed his own ego he believes that if he makes everything look complicated enough people will be forced to think he is brilliant. The effect is that all he succeeds in doing is to create a morass of complexity which quickly bogs itself down and then falls completely apart. The result of that is that the original aim of the exercise becomes completely lost and all efforts are then diverted into shoring the system up for the sake of appearances to avoid admitting failure.

The result is that Brown makes Mr. Micawber look like a financial genius in comparison.

[Jim Turner]

Remember also the U Turn when he made the provision of computers and some other electronics a tax-free benefit for employees (to everyone's surprise at the time).It was removed two years later, the reason given being that it was being abused - interesting when we now know what MPs were up to with their expense claims (Kaufmann claiming £6,000 for a TV, for example).

Interesting also to read the interview he gave to the Guardian last week when he said he could always be a teacher if he ever left politics, and almost in the same breath said he realises he's a bad communicator.

That's been one of GB's problems in many things he's said or done - he never thinks things through.

Incidentally, Marcel - "one" what?

[Paul Greaves]

Blair wrote to Isiaih Berlin, regarding the future of the left.
Berlins Negative Liberty philosophy,
led to Blairs Twisted interpretation, of the immeadiate future. [Gaining power by invoking a celebrity cult.]
Then [Quickly] deciding that the future of the left was to
'feed the greed of the individual'

Thats what New Labour did.

No accountability. Take what you want. Its all free. Free money. No regulation. etc etc

[You can see, in Blairs letter, to Berlin, this unasked, and unanswered question]

In other words, Blairs solution was 'to give the individual what they want, and they will be happy and vote for us'

And that was it. New Labours entire plan.

It really was that simple.

Brown was always hungry for power, and unhappy and bitter from the beginning that he did not get the top spot. Feeling he was far more suited then Blair ever was.

[At one point in his tenure Blair alomst invited Ashdown into his parliament, considering a more liberal left, but it was staunchly refused by Brown.]

New Labour was, and is, a disastrous experiment, and as we can see, with MPS like Mandy, and Bank Bail outs, socialism, weakens, or completely disregards accountability.

The hard lefties have always pandered to, and been sympathetic toward the marxist, communist viewpoints, which has now, finally, under Za Neu Labour [Heil!] severely damaged the fabric of our society.

Brown hated being in Blairs shadow, ironically, he has got his wish, as Brown will be remembered as the architect of this disastrous mess, and Blair will be a footnote, in the annals of NL history.
New Labours overwhelming memory will be of the most disastrous reign of any parliament for decades, possibly centuries.

New Labour was a monster. The bastard bitter child of Old Labour.

Under the direction of the twisted New Labour experiment, this duo have wreaked more economic damage onto the UK than Hitler managed during the Second World War.

And they are still in power.

[D.K.P]

In the beginning Blair wrote to Isiaih Berlin, regarding the future of the left.
Berlins Negative Liberty philosophy,
led to Blairs Twisted interpretation, of the immeadiate future. [Gaining power by invoking a celebrity cult.]
[Quickly] deciding that the future of the left was to
'feed the greed of the individual'

Thats what New Labour did. Thats all they did.

No accountability. Take what you want. Its all free. Free money. Free credit. No regulation. etc etc

[You can see this, in Blairs letter, to Berlin, this unasked, and unanswered question]

In other words, Blairs solution was 'to give the individual what they want, and they will be happy and vote for us'

And that was it. New Labours politiical philosophy.

Brown was always hungry for power, and unhappy and bitter from the beginning that he did not get the top spot. Feeling he was far more suited then Blair ever was.

[At one point in his tenure Blair alomst invited Ashdown into his parliament, considering a more liberal left, but it was staunchly refused by Brown.]

New Labour was, and is, a disastrous experiment, and as we can see, with MPS like Mandy, and Bank Bail outs, socialism, weakens, or completely disregards any notions of accountability.

Which leads to desperate damage, as these comments from people show.

Socialists in a capitalistic society, close their eyes to the fact that;
If you give to one person, it has to come from the other.
Thats why so many feel as though they have just been ignored, or are being punished for no reason.

Because they are. New Labour have created, a badly uneven society, with people in terraced houses, worth a million pounds on paper!

And others, doing the same job, on the same wages, with nothing at all.

As in Communist states, many suffer, but 'on paper' its all perfect, so it cannot be true that there is suffering.
[AKA The way the Soviets ruled]

They dont understand peoples complaints, about housing, jobs etc etc.

Under Za neu Labour Theres no room for complaints. They are completely ignored.

As this becomes worse and people are screaming for something to be done, the governments, respond with oppression.

Thats the slippery slope Za Nu Labour have put us on.

The hard lefties have always pandered to, and been sympathetic toward the marxist, communist viewpoints, which has now, finally, under Za Neu Labour [Heil!] severely damaged the fabric of our society.

Brown hated being in Blairs shadow, ironically, he has got his wish, as Brown will be remembered as the architect of this disastrous mess, and Blair will be a footnote, in the annals of NL history.
New Labours overwhelming memory will be of the most disastrous reign of any parliament for decades, possibly centuries.

A completely alien government for Great Britain.

Under the direction of the twisted New Labour experiment, this duo have wreaked more economic damage onto the UK than Hitler managed during the Second World War.

And they are still in power.
[And rich beyond their wildest dreams.]

[George Gray]

A Scots man playing with English money, Remember Scotland is the land of Benifits.

[Robin]

"Interesting that Labour's critics here have time to write such long rants".
Posted by: J Mendes

Actually what's really telling is that the few comments in favour of GB & NuL are so short! They contain NO reasoned or factual augument as to why this article, or his critics, is wrong.
I don't think it's an issue of time, JMendes, it's just that there is such a vast store of evidence available to condemn him and next to nothing that one can say in his favour!

[Robin]

P.S JMendes, as a GB fan, what would be useful is if you could take a little time out & post a COHERENT and STRUCTURED critique of the all the criticisms levelled at your hero. Why don't you use some FACTS and FIGURES to explain why soooooo many people in this country are mistaken? HahaHaHahaHa!!!

[zak]

We are great. We won the world war and we still got the Royals.
We can never go wrong. Yes we are drunk. One day when I wake up, I will start looking at books like Grip of Death and watch videos like Money Masters.

So for now we can do no wrong.

[Alan]

So the Times believes in the Laffer Curve (point 8 - as if the Reagan and Howe deficits never happened; thinks that “almost everyone” has an occupational pension (point 1 - no problem with the self-employed, unemployed, small-firm employees or those kept out of defined-benefit schemes then); dismisses tax credits (point 4) and the VAT cut (point 9) on the word of one anonymous accountant; condemns the government (point 5) for abandoning a tax measure when it’s “released” the large scale of avoidance, while elsewhere suggesting they’re wrong to persist with measures that miss revenue targets; believes that governments should override independent central banks and intervene to stop asset prices rising (point 7), in case there’s a bubble; and is against deficit spending (point 10) that is actually shortening the recession and will be largely self-liquidating in consequence. You often struggle to reach 10 points, but this has been exceptionally hard going.

James Charles could have quoted others who contradict his main assertions. But why let economics Nobel winners like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, who've pointed out the remarkable extent to which Brown got things right, dismiss what “tax experts” believe so firmly that they don't want to be named?

[Mary]

Why is anyone surprised? Gordon Brown hasn't had even a day's experience working in the financial sector.

[Austin Tassletine]

It is a good job, that there is less than year for these fools. Brown will be another example of rewarding failure.

Couldn't put it better myself.

[Marios]

This may change the way 'you''ll vote!!

[Joe Public.]

Al Qaeada: Heres an address for you:

10 Downing Street.

[Jackie]

Excellent!

Surely, the electorate can now see what a mess this man and his party have made of the economy and this country.

It is time for change. Real change. Not the Conservative 'tinker around the edges' change. I think the next general election will be the most significant election in my lifetime.

Whilst retaining trading links with European countries, we need to exit from the EU to save billions and regain control of our own borders and laws. We need to put a halt to immigration. We need to free ourselves of the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights which whilst sounding laudable have actually been primarily used to defend the 'rights' of criminals. We need to bring in a system of workfare not welfare.

There are only two parties promising all of the above: the BNP and UKIP.

I hope at the next election that voters will get out there and vote on policies and I hope the media will present an honest comparison of the policies so voters know what they are voting for.

[Lucy]

God. BNP fan chat at Money Central?

[Willom]

TimesOnLine forget that they need to write peoples opinions and not theirs. It is increasingly becoming clear that the Tories who do not recorgnise workers as they are investors are using their shares in the media to spread propaganda. The Tories continue to run business in undemocratic countries like Zimbabwe and others. New labour have not hesitated to do the right thing even if it meant risking being unpopular and for that reason we are on our way out of recession quicker than envisiged. Brown is not an actor like Cameroon. He is a man of few wise words and not a bubbler meant to charm its prey.

[David]

Willom wrote: "New labour have not hesitated to do the right thing"

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha haha ha

[Cosmas]

10 Mistatkes cannot be anything to condemn a good leader for. Afterall they are mistakes on opinion. Gordon is good because he can make a u turn in response to the people. Who else can do that? Lets not act like children, what does it help to vote for looks when that does not put food on the table. Labour has worked good security measures and its all working. Even Obama saluted Brown's prowess on organising a functional meeting. I am not deluded, I will vote labour because I will use my own mind instead of the hype.

[Simon]

Has to be public sector borrowing. That's the one that's really screwed us. You could argue (just about...) that selling gold was just a bit naive, that the regulator failures were down to the regulators themselves not the system, that pensions were going down anyway because of weak stock markets, that VAT/tax credits/corporation tax changes were well-intentioned, even if poorly executed.

But borrowing tens of billions of pounds a year at a time when the economy had been growing steadily for an unprecedentedly long time? And then pumping it all into completely unreformed and inefficient public services? Absolutely unjustifiable.

[Colin Lewis]

Cosmas's comment has to be satire, no?

[Eddie]

Cosmas & Willom: You two are obviously on benefits or public sector drones - for the real workers of this country who add value by producing things, Brown has been an unmitigated disaster. They are NOT opinions, the clown went ahead and did them all - a monkey would have been a better chancellor - Brown has frittered practically a trillion quid on nothing. The next 10 years will mean basic tax @30% and 21% VAT to put right what the incompetent fool has done. The only hope is he's destroyed the 100 year socialist experiment forever.

[Dan]

This is a list of the MPs who voted to REJECT expenses reform.

The MP's who expected us, the taxpayer, to continue to pay for their second homes allowances, such as 50" flatscreen TV's, Artwork, Having pictures framed, food, etc etc etc Expenses running into tens and tens of thousands of pounds, per individual, while they live like royalty.

ZA NU Labour = Pigs in the trough

146 Labour ministers voted for it!

Surprisingly Only 20 Tory ministers voted for it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7488639.stm

Jut shows you what a greedy bunch of Bast@rds Labour Ministers really are.

The expenses scam, was another of Gordon Browns ideas.

[JAFE]

Tax credits may heave been poorly implemented but that does not mean they have been valuable. Had my Mother not been receiving tax credits my siblings and I would not have got through University and my Mother would be in dire straits. She does work 9-5 five days a week but with a large family on minimum wage it is only with assistance from tax credits that this is at all tenable. There have been lamentable episodes but on the whole I would argue more good than harm has been achieved

What you mean Jafe is that Brown and New Labours utterly disastrous reign is completely indefensible.

Except by Lies and Spin, which is all Labour are.

If you think, as you say you could argue that more good than harm has been done, I would like to see you try.

You can start by giving a counter argumnet to each of the ten points above, then read the points in the comments section, and address each of those.

No?

Didnt think so.....

[geoff]

the mistake is the people believed in what phoney tony and lying gordie said and voted them in.now we must pay for they mistakes over the last 12 years.give us a vote so we can boot you out brown along with your mp,s

[Chris]

From our point of view we should consider Mr Brown's greatest gaffe to be turning up. We would have been better off paying him to stay away.
It is Messrs Brown and Blair who have been in charge for 12 years. They have introduced policies and raised public spending commitments to the now disastrous levels we have. Public debt has trebled under Mr Brown's watch with seemingly little to show for it, other than a serious erosion of our personal freedom. The interest in the debt alone would pay for a fair number of schools and hospitals if that's what people really want. Lots (but not all) of the problems in the public sector are not about lack of money. They are about not having people in place who understand how to use the money effectively or not allowing those competent people in place to do the right thing so as to actually make a difference. An honest debate rarely takes place because too many people fall for the red herring that reduced spending means radically reduced service when in fact what we should be asking for is effective and efficient spending and a reduction in waste. If we want excellent public services we need to get the right people in place and pay them enough to attract and keep them. That doesn't mean the public sector should be the employer of last resort and a home for those who can't find work elsewhere. One of NuLabour's great achievements has been the creation of lots of organizations that are dependent on public money and are headed by six figure earning second raters. The list of gaffes is long and depressing. Hubris Brown - you need to retire - and soon.

[Tom Richards]

With the voting box underneath the article, is there any way you can let us have 10 votes? They're all laughably idiotic gaffes in Labour's reign of error, and quite frankly I'm finding it hard to decide between them.