Only the Lonely

"...what gets me is, where were his critics five years ago, when everything was boom, and the country went schizo with an official inflation rate of 2% while the housing market registered up to 20%? Still, all I saw was beaming faces...by all means, get rid of Brown, but who are you going to replace him with?!"
Selena Dreamy

I know what you mean, Dreamy. Everybody was slapping him on the back in the good times, when he was like a drunk buying all the rounds at a bar. They turn on him when his pockets are empty and now he's friendless, bitter and wondering where the next unkind cut is coming from.

They turned on Blair, too, the man who gave them their three terms in a job that half of them could never have dreamed of.

But (see post below) everybody knew there was no real growth - that it was founded on unsustainable consumer credit. And interest rates were down because of the Fed's lead, and inflation low thanks to Chinese imports. The epitome of Brown's hubris ("no more boom and bust") has come back to haunt him as it was always bound to. And he, too, must have known the truth unless he's a complete fool... but while ever the illusion of pumping up public spending and raising living standards on borrowed money could be kept going, the old fraud couldn't give up the high that came with the plaudits.

I don't want to sound tooooo sanguine.. after all, I called the top of the housing market too early myself - thinking it would fall back due to overpricing/affordability rather than implode on credit running out and banks going bust. Maybe if that had happened, he'd have got away with it.

Who'll replace him? These are small people. They probably all think they could do the job. Whether any of them will want it, once they look down the barrel of defeat and semi-permanent opposition, is another matter. Having their name, albeit briefly, on the list of British Prime Ministers, though, might be a tempter they can't resist.