Brown’s toxic farewell

The Pre-Budget Report was, like the Queen’s Speech that preceded it in November, an almost empty sideshow.

The Pre-Budget Report was, like the Queen’s Speech that preceded it in November, an almost empty sideshow. The Chancellor’s threatened assault on bankers’ bonuses and Gordon Brown’s sudden diatribe against high public-sector salaries were feeble attempts to distract the public gallery by playing to its prejudices. Additional ‘efficiency savings’ were piffling in scale. All these gestures combined to emphasise the bare truth: that there is nothing for this dysfunctional government to do in its dying months aside from complete the ‘scorched earth’ policy by vandalising the public finances.

It may have been Alistair Darling delivering a Pre-Budget Report, but there was no doubt that this was a Brown budget in full, devastating form. It was used as a weapon of party political warfare. Rising public debt does not impinge immediately on voters’ lives in the way that tax rises or public service cuts do, so the scale of this catastrophe has not yet come into focus — and that’s why Gordon Brown has let rip.