One of the arguments in the election campaign is whether Gordon Brown can be blamed for the recession. Labour says he is blameless because it is a world recession. But Britain has been worst hit among the making economies and I've blogged before on why Brown has responsibility for making it worse in three ways by mistakes he made before it started. Firstly, presiding over an explosion of state borrowing. Secondly, moving bank regulation from the Bank of England too the Financial Services Authority. Thirdly, by changing the classification of inflation from the Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Price Index which ignored overheating in the housing market and obliged the bank of England to set interest rates lower than they should have been.
I think I should have added a fourth. Stephen Askins, who is the Ravenscourt Park Ward Chairman in Hammersmith and Fulham where I am a councillor, emails after canvassing:
A voter said to me you cannot blame it on Gordon Brown. My response was: Yes you can – the withdrawal of the Dividend Tax Credit destabilized everything, meaning that high risk was necessary to make the returns needed to pay the pensions meaning that banks and other were required to take higher risks and we are where we are. At least he remained as a Probable after that conversation - but it should be a national conversation not a local one.
There are a thousand different reasons for getting rid of this Government. But the heavy culpability of Gordon Brown for the recession is an important theme and within that his irresponsible decision to abolish the Dividend Tax Credit certainly merits more attention.
