"debt is pure opium to politicians... Asset bubbles make homeowners feel rich. This is economics as narcotic"

Fraser Nelson's article in the current Spectator is a must read. Here is an extract:

"the first task for the Tories is to argue relentlessly that the crash was the inevitable result of New Labour’s debt addiction. Since 1997, debt for individuals (as opposed to government debt) has almost trebled to £1,580 billion — more than the country’s economic output. It is the highest household borrowing that Britain or any G7 country has ever seen.

So much of what Mr Brown taught us to regard as ‘prosperity’ was, in fact, nothing more than a debt-fuelled illusion. Modelling by the Oxford Economics consultancy shows the extraordinary effect this had on the British economy. Had debt been kept to the levels of most major countries, there would be 470,000 more unemployed, salaries would have risen by half the amount they did and house prices by a third of what they did. This is why debt is pure opium to politicians: it looks, sounds and smells like real prosperity. Asset bubbles make homeowners feel rich. This is economics as narcotics."

and here is another:

"There was another psychological dimension: Mr Brown was scarcely going to criticise the bankers for something he himself was doing as manager of the public purse. Like them, he used complex debt concealment vehicles (like PFI) to circumvent what borrowing rules existed. Like the directors of Northern Rock he had not prepared for a ‘bust’ he believed would never arrive. Ramping up debt in a boom is a recipe for short-term political gain that few other countries followed."

Spread the word and see if the narrative can be shifted from "Super Gordon" to "rotten Gordon".