Do you see what I see?

I do like a wee wander down memory lane from time to time. See what you think of these flowers I picked en route:

Mr. Gladstone combined the positions of Chancellor and Prime Minister, something no one should ever contemplate doing again.
Gordon Brown's last budget as Chancellor, 21st March 2007

Ahem, quite ...

With consumption forecast to rise in each of the next two years by 21/4 to 23/4 per cent., and investment and exports by more than 3 per cent., we expect that next year also, in 2008, alongside North America, our growth will again be the highest in the G7—between 21/2 and 3 per cent., with the same rate of growth also in 2009.
ibidem

Slightly off, I think.

in Britain, we expect debt from 2007-08 to 2012 to be 38 per cent., 38.5 per cent., 38.8 per cent., 38.8 per cent. and 38.6 per cent. in successive years
ibid

He was talking about debt as a percentage of GDP. I think that prediction has gone a little awry.

Britain’s net borrowing, which in the early 1990s went as high as 8 per cent. of our national income is this year just 2.7 per cent. In future years, it will be 2.4 per cent., falling to 2 per cent. and then falling to 1.8 per cent., 1.6 per cent. and just 1.4 per cent. Compared to a deficit equivalent to over £100 billion in a single year in the early ’90s, the figure for this and future years will be just £35 billion—£1 billion less than forecast at the pre-Budget report—then falling to £34 billion, £30 billion, £28 billion, £26 billion and £24 billion. That means borrowing therefore over the economic cycle not for current consumption, but for essential investment in the future of our country.
ibid

Events, dear boy, events...

You know better than me how we are and can continue to entrench our position as a world leader in business and financial services, but from the point of view of the government we insist that we will continue to implement our new risk-based light touch approach to regulation, we will make our planning system more flexible and responsive and of course we will work together on infrastructure to invest in our long term priorities. And I believe that that is an important part of London retaining its position as the pre-eminent financial centre in so many sectors.
Gordon Brown on 1st October 2007

That light-touch financial regulation worked well, didn't it?

I believe the British economy is far more resilient than it was facing the last two oil shocks and facing some of the problems we had when there was a world downturn in the early 90s.”
Gordon Brown on 3rd July 2008

Hmmm.

In the next two decades our world economy will double in size.
Gordon Brown on 26th September 2008

What was the starting point?

Labour has taken the right decisions to promote prosperity.
Labour’s economic policy

Perhaps not?

Darling has told cabinet ministers that there will be no additional money for schools, hospitals, defence, transport or policing. "There is no point them writing in saying 'can we have some more money?' because the reply is already on its way and it's a very short reply," he says in today's Times, adding that even he is feeling the pinch: "I haven't purchased a tie for ages."
Alasdair Darling showing he knows all about public procurement 19th July 2008

The economy shrank by 1.5% last year - but it's apparently Johnny Foreigner's fault.

If you look at what's happening in America then obviously where all the issues started - America

Gordon Brown saying "a big boy did it and ran away"

In May of last year Gordon Brown was trying to combine the jobs of Prime Minister and Chancellor - something he know shouldn't be done - perhaps that's why he's not managed either of them well? In November he was off saving the world again, by December he was promising that going bankrupt actually makes you stronger, and by today he was telling us to cheer up and get with the programme to just suffer "the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order".

Perhaps if he'd paid attention to the IMF in 2005 those birth-pangs might not have felt quite so much like strangulation?