Full steam ahead, Captain Brown!

I discovered the other day that the Guardian archives blog posts on its CommentIsFree website. Now as someone who has spent an excessive amount of time bashing the qwerty keyboard on CommentIsFree, arguing the toss with three or four other wastrels, I was curious to revisit Time Wasting: The Early Days to see just how bilious was the colour of my bile way back in 2007. One post caught my eye. It was in response to a Guardian leader in February that year on the spending choices facing Gordon Brown's government, ending thus:

The chancellor can also take comfort from less-reported aspects of yesterday's report, which underlined just how impressive his record has been. The books are in better shape than they were in 1997 - an achievement that stands out for having been delivered in tandem with the extra resources for health, education and alleviating poverty. Mr Brown's credibility has suffered from his bending of the yardsticks by which his performance is measured. But the underlying purpose of these fiscal rules is to avoid things spinning out of control, and he continues to avoid that. Yesterday's report concludes that the track Mr Brown is following can be sustained economically - if not in terms of public services - without tax rates going up.

Yes, in the light of subsequent events it does read rather like an interim report from the Captain of a certain well-known ocean liner, just before the iceberg strikes. I am rather proud of my response, which read as follows:

So "The books are in better shape than they were in 1997" are they? I seem to remember the Tories delivered Brown a fairly hefty public account surplus when he arrived in office (this is actually wrong); and where are we now? A deficit of £35 billion or thereabouts, that's where. Only in cloud cuckoo land are the books in better shape.

"Yesterday's report concludes that the track Mr Brown is following can be sustained economically - if not in terms of public services - without tax rates going up." But public services are the whole point, aren't they? It's a bit like saying "the Titanic is doing fine, except in terms of floating".

We have enjoyed a decade of economic good times built on both government and citizens spending money they did not have. We now learn that the government can't afford its spending plans without either raising taxes or cutting spending, both of which will reduce economic activity and risk recession. We may well find that the trad Keynesian way out of recession is unavailable because the Government borrowed too much during the good times. And let's not forget that current Government provision is looking inadequate in areas other than health and education - the armed forces, prisons and care for the elderly spring to mind.

The Brown Boom will end in tears.

You read it there first, 18 months before the credit crunch.

Or at least three or four of you did.