Bad news for Gordon Brown

The BBC's report on the National Institute of Economic and Social Research's study which says the current economic decline is "very similar" to the slowdown at the start of the 1980s and could decline for another year and take a further two years to recover will not fill Gordon Brown with cheer.

The accompanying graph which shows great similarities between the "% fall in output from peak" between 1979-1983 and 2008 onwards is what the NIESR base their timings prediction upon. This timing would lead to the bottom not being reached until just about a year from now, which is about the latest date that the next general election can take place. So Gordon Brown either goes to the Country now and gets accused of calling it before the true extent of the economy's collapse is evident, or he waits and waits for it to improve which it looks as though it won't before it is too late for him and his shoddy party.

The shame of it is that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs and millions will feel the pain of reduced living standards because two men and their party decided to use the asset bubble to finance their programme of social engineering.

I would like to make it clear that just as this economic bust is due to the mismanagement of a Labour government, so was the 1979-1983 bust. The 1979-1983 bust being due to the appalling mismanagement of the James Callaghan/Dennis Healey government that preceded it.