Snippets

The Golden Legacy

A GOLDEN LEGACY

January 30th 2011. Ed Balls, newly appointed as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer - the job he always wanted - appeared on the Andrew Marr show on UK Television.

In his interview he endeavoured to 'bad mouth' the Coalition government's austerity measures to recover the nation from the economic mess that he and his party left as their legacy from their time in power.

He sat on the edge of the armchair, hunched forwards, hands outstretched in an appeal for credibility. Head lowered, chin wobbling and eyes unfixed, but shifting around: The body language of defence and discomfort.

Miliband and Balls, but minus Brown - the old Labour Party Treasury team that had, in their words, 'abolished' boom and bust were back again, but minus Brown and shouting the merits of their policies and the deficiencies of those of the Liberal - Conservative coalition government, that was sorting out their mess.

A possible outline for a sketch came to mind:-

Consider a successful dinner party nearing its end, two affluent upper middle class and middle aged couples are sipping their wine and engaging in conversation at the table.

Hostess:  'Do have some more wine everybody. We may as well enjoy it while we can. Before this wretched austerity government prices it even out of our reach..'

(general mumble of sombre agreement around the table as glasses are replenished by the hostess)

Male Guest: (shaking his head) 'I..I.. really don't know what alternative they have. It's awful really. Whatever possssed Labour to put Miliband and Balls back into the Treasury as their top team in opposition. (Indignantly)  Well I mean, they didn't see the mess coming when they were in power....'

(More gloomy  murmurs of agreement from around the table)

Host: 'Oh! That's where you're wrong..'

Male Guest: (astonished)  'I am..?'

Host: 'Yes you are! You see they saw it coming long before the crash actually happened...'

(Noise of in-rushing of breath and gasps of astonishment from around the table)

Male Guest: 'They did?' (irritated) 'Then why the Devil did they let it happen...?'

( loud mutters of support)

Host: 'They said they couldn't prevent it. It was a global issue. It affected everybody ... everywhere. All they could do was to take measures to protect the nation against the worst of its ill effects.'

Male Guest:(sceptically) ' and they did so...?'

Host: (enthusiastically banging the table with the palm of his hand for emphasis) 'Oh Yes they did! They saw that their continuing popularity as a government was based entirely on their policy of over-spending and the increasing enlargement of the public sector ... (pause for emphasis before continuing) ...To sustain this it would need increased financial borrowing in the years ahead. But they foresaw the financial crash coming and prepared themselves for it!'

Female Guest:  But  why ... and how, for goodness sake?

Host: (swirls his glass and slowly sips his wine befpre replying). You see, the coming crash would put the economy into recession or even depression and that would curtail borrowing. Funds would dry up overnight. There was no longer and real money out there.  The only money was the apparent paper wealth created by the hyper-inflated property market.