In praise of Gordon Brown, being the first part of a one-part series

All politicians require a thick skin, but Gordon Brown must have an elephant’s hide. If an ordinary man had presided over the greatest crash since 1929, shame would compel silence. Not so with Brown, who is unable to see himself as other see him, and has written an account of the European crisis for the New York Times, which is – astonishingly – well worth reading.

‘The exigencies of domestic politics have locked the euro zone into an impossible set of economic constraints — no defaults, no deficits, no stimulus and, of course, no devaluations — which mean that there can also be no banking stability, no lasting growth, no sustained job creation and no boost to competitiveness from their currency.  There is no escaping the basic fact that Europe’s difficulties are indicative of deep structural defects — its declining competitiveness, aging population and persistently high unemployment. Its share of world output, which has already halved, is set to halve from 20 percent today to around 10 percent over the next two decades.