“British government bond yields – the cost of servicing government borrowing – have risen above those of Italy for the first time since mid-2008. Britain has to pay much more to borrow than other triple?A-rated economies such as Germany, France and the US.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f14fb952-249e-11df-8be0-00144feab49a.html

But see also in Monday’s FT: America and Britain can handle decades of debt:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abd675a8-24d2-11df-8be0-00144feab49a.html

Oh, OT, but did anyone see the last ‘Great Offices of State’ programme on BBC4 last week? When Darling said that only 3 people in the main body of the Treasury had ever worked there during a recession, jaw hit floor, tears ran down face and TV went out of window. If that’s not an indication into how Brown is a control freak, arrogant, idiotic runt of an individual, well, not sure what is. They had no plans for downturn – not a 1. Even a 16 year old in his first semester of Economics would have worked out the requirement for contingency, but no, Gordon just sacks people.

Beware of politicans ditching their ideologies just before election time.

Tory Economic policy = Liberalism = Reduced financial regulation = Wild west.

…and don’t let them tell you any different.

First thing the electorate need to ask themselves is “do we really want a chancellor who only has a GCSE in maths”?

Within the last few hours this Sunday, the Press Association has put out this:

“The Tories’ lead in the opinion polls has been dramatically slashed to just two points, according to a new survey.

“The YouGov poll in the later editions of The Sunday Times shows the gap between Labour and the Conservatives is the closest for more than two years.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5i_wz0jT3EEy3wiuVDodSxtKVNYeg

Some advice for Conservatives: Denis Healey’s First Law of Holes still applies:

“It is a good thing to follow the First Law of Holes: if you are in one, stop digging.”
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/denis_healey.html

Does this mean Cameron will be rejoining us to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, just like John Major did in October 1990 when he was Mrs Thatcher’s Chancellor?

And will a Cameron government also be pouring billions of taxpayers’ money into reviving the motor industry and supporting the coal mining industry?

Stange that come the 1992 election, tax revenues as a percentage of Britain’s GDP were much the same as in May 1979 when Mrs Thatcher was first elected PM.

one possibility is that Cameron really doesn’t understand what he is talking about.

But Mrs Thatcher said (correctly IMO): “There is no such thing!”
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106689

If Cameron is claiming Mrs Thatcher’s economic revolution as his own, does that mean he has changed his mind and will bring back “Monetarism”?

I think we should know because I thought that the IMF had written the obituary on Monetarism back in 1996:

” …instability of monetary demand, especially in the context of supply shocks and declines in potential output growth, complicated the task of monetary authorities. As a result, during the 1980s most central banks – with some notable exceptions – either abandoned or downplayed the role of monetary targets.”
IMF World Economic Outlook, October 1996, p.106.

Will the Bank of England be switching from targeting inflation to aiming to attain monetary targets again if we get a Conservative government at the election?

Of course, one possibility is that Cameron really doesn’t understand what he is talking about.