Gordon is proven to be a moron - again

Unwarranted because this is the man who announced immediately he entered office in 1997 that gold no longer had any intrinsic value and was gob-smacked when a lot of savvy rich people promptly took tons of it off his hands at knock-down prices.

Those words are from the blog I posted on the 20th February. At that time, I already knew that the price of gold had reached new record highs. I didn't realise - because I am not an avid follower of the markets - just how much it was now worth. Without boring the pants off anyone, let's just say it's climbing inexorably, according to those in the know, towards $1000 per ounce. Some experts are predicting that it might double again during the course of 2008. All of which must be a tad embarassing for our dear aunt Prudence Brown, the allegedly brilliant erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer, who flogged off the bulk of our gold reserves for around $200 per ounce when he came into office in 1997. By some estimates, his "prudence" has cost everyone in the country around £100 or, put another way, a round £6 billion to you squire and would you like that bullion nicely gift wrapped before you take it back to the Emirates ?

Add that £6 billion to the odd £50 billion his crassness has cost the private pensions sector since 1997 and you would have to be terminally stupid or a devout disciple of Prudence Brown to continue to believe that his reign has been anything other than a disaster for this country. Were he the CEO of a publicly quoted company he would have been packed off into a decently funded retirement long ago.
Instead, he's a career politician with the reputation of a heavy weight intellect: A reputation whose origins could probably be traced back to the man himself. Because, despite his protestations of modesty, our Gordon is not the shy, retiring violet that he likes to portray himself as; something that would probably come as a bit of a surprise to many people who regarded him as Dr. Jekyll to Tony Blair's Mr. Hyde.
Consider, if you will, his performance last week at the Labour Conference where he referred to himself, with obvious relish, as the Great Clunking Fist; his favourite sobriquet after The Iron Chancellor. Never mind that when Dave Cameron challenges him at PM's Questions the great clunking fist shakes like a recalcitrant schoolboy forced to decline an irregular verb for the benefit of a vinegary old Latin master. Or that he chose to skulk into Lisbon while everyone else was at lunch to sign the iniquitous Treaty that hands Great Britain on a plate to his masters in Brussels. In his mind, he is Flash Gordon. Not just another super hero but a class warrior and representative of the oppressed and needy the world over. In other words, he is as much a fantasist as his straight kinda guy predecessor, but without the redeeming feature of being able to play the guitar.
The truth is, with his record over the last 11 years, Not So Flash Gordon would struggle to get a gig running a Punch and Judy show, let alone the economy of the fourth, fifth or sixth ( depending on the relative values of the pound and euro) wealthiest country in the world. Which is, perhaps, why he is lying so desperately through his newly enamelled teeth to force the Treaty of Lisbon through Parliament without the undoubted inconvenience of a referendum or similar democratic artifice. There has to be a nice little earner in it for him in the shape off a comfortable EU sinecure or some lucrative consultancy work ,once he has lost the next election.
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