The birth of another "Brownie"

The excellent Fraser Nelson writes at The Spectator about Gordon Brown's latest "Brownie":

"He’s done it. I blogged a while ago about how Gordon Brown lost his battle to have Northern Rock struck off the books, causing trouble for his oft-repeated Brownie that he has reduced debt from 43% to 37% of GDP. In August, the ONS showed National Debt was 43.3% - and had actually been at those levels for a year. So what was Brown to do? Last week, I reported a rumour that he’d ordered up a new debt series to exclude NR. I said something daft at the time, like “he couldn’t – could he?” Well, he did – and in fact he had by the time I blogged.

There is now a new measure entitled “National Debt excluding Northern Rock,” code HF6W. It shows the figures Brown needs - 43% to 37% - thus helping him claim he can afford the bank bailout. And he’ll be repeating it non stop. I smelled a rat when Harriet Harman used the 37% figure in the Commons. Brown is careful with his Brownies – and her mentioning it in parliament indicated that a new debt series had indeed been born. As so often, I underestimated him.

His new debt series has already replaced National Debt (RUTO, may it rest in peace) by HM Treasury in its monthly data series. So - presto! At the stroke of a statistician’s pen, Northern Rock has vanished. Now Brown can get back to lecturing the banks about their immoral methods of debt concealment and lack of transparency."

You almost have to admire Gordon Brown's chutzpah; were it not for the fact that aided and abetted by the BBC he might actually persuade gullible people that the economy was not drowning in debt. The Conservatives will try and publicise this "Brownie" but will they get the airtime? Maybe David Cameron could bring this up at PMQs on Wednesday, assuming Gordon Brown deigns to turn up, but can his team devise a killer series of questions?