Brown’s golden error

The price of gold broke $900 an ounce on Friday. So this gives us another chance to reflect on Brown’s calamitous decision to sell British gold reserves at $275 an ounce five years ago. By my calculations his disastrous foray into asset management has cost the British taxpayer £3.1bn so far. Tackled about this on Marr last week, he said he was simply responding to those “asking us to diversify our portfolio of holdings from simply gold to other currencies.” The real, extraordinary story is in this definitive Sunday Times piece from last April.