Sep 2009 15

Robert Peston interviewed Gordon Brown for last night's News at Ten, and produced an absolute gem. As the interview wound up, Pesto asked the PM

Did you worry about the way in which household sector indebtedness was increasing, individuals were borrowing more and more and more?

To which Gordon replied

Well, I've never been someone who myself has been interested in running up personal debts or borrowing huge amounts of money.

(Watch it here, at 11 mins 10 secs in)

If you don't laugh, you'll cry. The Prime Minister doesn't think it's responsible or sensible to borrow money himself, but is happy to borrow £175 billion this year alone on the public credit card – that's £6,944 for every family in the country this year alone.

It doesn't matter how prudent you choose to be with your finances – the Government are driving you massively into debt without even asking you.

If debt isn't right for his family, why is Gordon Brown running it up for everyone else's?

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  • Hardeep Singh

    Perhaps it’s because he’s not really accountable for that money, in other words he’s saying “well why should I care – I’m alright Jack”.
    That’s his view of the UK, how very unpatriotic.

  • Steve Robson

    Who the hell do you think you are, Mark Wallace. He is Prime Minister and has given his life to public service. Yes he gets stuff wrong, but does his best. You are just an ambitious (for your own ends) ex public schoolboy standing on the sidelines criticising, without any proposals of substance beyond no taxes, but somehow better services. At the same time you fail to recognise the massive improvement in services and the capital infrastructure since your lot were last in power and nearly destroyed this country.
    God help us if you con enough people and we get the self serving Right back in power again.

  • Donald Keycock

    Why does Steve Robson get so personal? Why the reference to ex public schoolboy? Oh and Gordon Brown has not given his life to public service. Like most modern day politicians he has spent his life fulfilling his own ambitions. Brown is a career politician who has never had a proper job and his tenure as PM has been a disaster for Britain.

  • Steve Robson

    Me get personal??? What people say about Gordon Brown and public servants on this website is personal? Elliot has even written a ridiculous book saying that EVERY single extra penny put into public services since 1997 has been wasted. That is personal as well as clearly wrong. If these people actually visited the many state schools and NHS hospitals built since 1997, then they couldn’t make such absurd statements. That’s why I assume they must only be aware of private schools and private hospitals.

  • Donald Keycock

    Left, Left, Left Left Left. Steve Robson seems to have a problem with all things private. Look mate it’s the private sector that creates wealth right. And some of that wealth has to be allocated to provide public services. We can all live with that so long as those services are deemed essential. However I’m sure that there are many people like me who run their own business who are sick to death of being pestered and harried by petty minded bureaucrats. I have a business to run and staff who need paying. I don’t need another local authority survey asking about the colour, sexuality, toilet habits etc of my employees. Time and time again I come into contact with council staff who don’t add value to anything that we do and whose sole purpose seems to justifying their existence at our expense. Oh and before I forget, there have been no new schools and hospitals built in my neck of woods since 1997. One thing that the main General Hospital and all of the secondary schools have in common in around here is that they all resemble a war zone.

  • Donald Keycock

    By the way didn’t Blair go to public school? And Harman? Just two that spring to mind. The hypocrisy is just breathtaking.

  • Daran

    Lefties just don’t get it do they? Their arrogance is breathtaking. Believing as they do that their beer & sandwiches tin-pot political party have a right to all our money, and know how to spend it better than we do.
    And Donald, hey don’t worry. Steve and his kind will have many many years to contemplate why the people of this country turned against Labour. I think 3 terms of monumental failure of governance may be partly to blame – but I could be wrong!
    This contemplation is due to start around May/June next I believe. He he :) Isn’t that right Steve ;)
    Seriously though it is a shame that due to Gordon the Moron’s total f*ck-up of the nations finances, Cameron as PM won’t be able to reduce taxation until possibly years 4 & 5 of his first term in office. But maybe after the Lefties have seen that a *fair* reduction in your taxes does not equate to the total implosion of public services or indeed the nation as they hysterically seem to spout in an effort to scare people into voting for Gordon and what is left of his motley crew.
    Maybe then they will get it. But I won’t hold my breath!
    Btw Steve, in case you think I bleed blue blood if I cut myself. Let me (embarrasingly) admit to having voted for that shambles called New Labour not once – but twice (the first two Blair terms).
    Really, i’m SO sorry folks! Please forgive me my stupidity! I’m really not proud of having helped put them in power twice over. In my defence I was young and stupid (+ I must have been on medication or something…).
    But twice bitten and all that. Like many others now, never ever ever will I make the mistake again of voting Labour.

  • Steve Robson

    Donald Keycock
    CORRECTION – Both the public and private sector create wealth. This is just right wing propaganda worthy of Geobbels to say that only the private sector create wealth. Who educates your workforce, keeps them healthy, provides the road network and other infrastructure, enforces the law, defends the realm, puts out fires etc etc etc? Who pays half your customers (teachers, social workers, police, soldiers etc etc etc)? You people walk around blind, avoid and evade tax and expect it all for nothing.

  • Vas

    Politics is big business, the firm looks after MP’s of all parties.
    Apart from the odd one or two genuine people, MP’s do not,never have and never will look after the people of this country, They play lip service whilst raking in a much money as they can.
    Now the coffers are empty and in order to continue with their programme of looking after number one grabbing as much as they can get their trotters on, they borrow.
    They will to continue to do this till someone cry’s halt.
    We will be left with the bill as usual.
    What happened to the reform of parliament and the MP’s expenses fiasco? Which rug are those under?

  • Steve Robson

    What an absolutely ridiculous comment by Vas. You’d have to be demented to go into Politics (or indeed work in the public sector) to make money. Politicians make nothing compared to businessmen, accountants, laywers, journalists and other professions. Most work horrendous hours and suffer constant abuse from the gutter press and gutter websites.
    Boris Johnson earns twice as much from an hour a week writing a newspaper column thatn from being Mayor of London.
    Get a grip. Look at FACTS.

  • Alanin Wales

    To Steve Robson. Basic wages for MP’S are lower than in the private sector, however most of those in private sector employment on high wages have worked their way up and are very very good at their job, otherwise they would be sacked or be on crap money. MP’s however with their gold plated pensions (after only 4 yrs), allownces, freebies, old boy network, get far more than their ability would get them in the private sector. Can you imagine John Prescott being paid thousands of pounds as a company rep ? or Harriet Harman as Public relations advisor, or would Gordon Brown be paid hundreds of thousands as a tax adviser in the peivate sector ..I doubt it. Most MP’S now are far removed from the real world, never having had full time employment in a real job. 3 months break in the summer,a real accountant or lawyer would never get such a break. But the biggest bonus to being an MP is non-accountability. How many private sector workers would get away with “mistakes” in their expenses. How many private citizens would get away with “mistakes” on their tax returns. How many private sector workers would get away with “mistakes” that cost their company millions (or billions if in I.T) Make me an MP anytime over a poor shmuck earning a living and being responsible for all his actions and having to work 30 yrs for a paltry pension

  • Alanin Wales

    As to the public sector creating wealth ? How does that work ? Road building ? not done by public sector workers as far as I know ? Teach us ? mmm thats debatable…levels of education have really gone down the pan over recent years. Spelling ? non existent, mental arithmatic ? non existent, practical skills (woodwork, metalwork, cooking, sewing?,) oh yes thats right non existent.
    Lets try another public sector mmmm..lets see Law Enforcement, Burglary, robbery, rape, murder, assault, shoplifting and vandalism, detection and conviction rates at their lowest for years. Parking Fines, speeding fines, sorn fines, seatbelt fines, eating a kitkat whilst driving fines, dropping litter fines, smoking in the wrong place fines, overfilling dustbin fines, no car tax fines oh now theres a surprise all increased dramatically over the last 10 years…see how we are defended against the dregs of society. Well whats the point of going on

  • Donald Keycock

    This Robson fella just doesn’t get it does he. Just how exactly does the public sector create wealth? It doesn’t. It’s people like me that create proper jobs and wealth. Oh and most of the services that he mentioned are the essential services that I mentioned in my previous post.

  • Donald Keycock

    By the way who the fuck is Geobells?

  • Philip Fresi

    We need more Steve Robsons writing their obsolete and slightly deranged views and we need to give these views maximum publicity: that will ensure yeras of oblivion for the Left.

  • Brian Smith

    No rewards in the public sector? They are all self-sacrificing saints giving up the vast incomes they could earn in the private sector just to look after us?
    Just remind me: how many houses/farms do Tony Blair, Prescott, Callaghan own?
    Don’t make me laugh.

  • http://:www.thebcgroup.org.uk Shastra

    Gordon Brown is a complete joke!
    First he sells of OUR gold reserves at a rock bottom price and then we watch it increase in value. Then he makes statements such as the above.
    His statement about debt is totally laughable!
    HE isn’t interested in running up huge amounts of personal debt. But he has no problem landing US and our children in massive debt.
    Steve Robson is probably a product of the NuLabour education, education, education system he cannot spell and has been indoctrinated.
    I believe he meant ‘Joseph Goebbels’.
    I believe if a leader of the country is going to make a decision with regards OUR and our children’s future it should be a case of;
    consent, consent, consent!!!

  • steve Robson

    Donald Keycock doesn’t get it. The essental services he agrees with are what the tax pays for. Without them no wealth would be produced. Visit a third world country if you want to see how it works (or rather doesn’t). You need both public and private sector. That is a moderate view compared to Elliot saying EVERY PENNY of extra spending since 1997 has been wasted. I suspect that your business would not survive and produce any wealth without a strong public sector.
    Actually, I am a product of pre-Labour education policy. That’ll be why I can’t spell.
    Of course there is too much debt. But there are three reasons for that; the failure of the banks, the recession and, yes, too much public spending. None of that means that public services are to blame or that they are failing. We do need to reduce spend, but there will be consequences, as there were last time. If the TPA and people on this blog were a bit more balanced in their views and didn’t try to make out that the debt was caused by a few too many equalities officers and excessive MP’s expenses, then we may be able to progress.

  • Daran

    “Actually, I am a product of pre-Labour education policy. That’ll be why I can’t spell.”
    Now I know you are deluded Steve! Have you not heard that kids are educated specifically to pass the exams these days? Not educated to obtain knowledge and learn for the sake of learning. That’s why the CBI are reporting that graduates are now entering business not being able to spell or do basic arithmetic.
    Which is both a pretty poor state of affair, and yet another dagger in the corpse of what is left of this once great nations body. Having of course been nearly killed off by 3 terms of Labour.

  • Steve Robson

    Daran
    Well you say that, but its not my experience of my children’s education, nor of people I know. Their education seems much better than mine was to me – more resources, wider subject range, better teachers, fairer methods. Your view sounds more like a Daily Mail soundbite to me than a view based on experience, but I may just be lucky in where I live. Mr Keycock lives in a warzone apparently!
    It certainly ain’t nirvana, its a pity the TPA’s friends and backers in the banks have buggered it all up and, yes, its a pity Gordon Brown let them bugger it up (not that the Tories would have stopped them as they’re even more in cahoots).
    But, I’ve voted for them three times and will a fourth time along with 30% to 33% of the voters I suspect. You have voted for them twice and now won’t. I think things have got better, you don’t. I think we’ll lose in 2010, but with a different leader and after a right royal fuck up by the Tories, partly based on implementing the poorly researched and ridiculous ideas of the TPA, I think we’ll win in 2015, so I’ll be off down the bookies and lay my bet now.
    Cheers!

  • Daran

    So you are disputing the CBI then Steve. Why would they lie? They only have British industries best interests at heart. Poor quality staff = poor corporate performance = deminishing tax returns = NO PENSIONS FOR ALL OF US!!!! Think about that. Of course Gordon and the militant unions are going to say education standards have improved. LOL. They are hardly likely to say otherwise are they?
    Most teenagers I have dealings with now Steve sadly seem incredibly stupid in general knowledge terms. Not knowing where countries are on the map for example is not acceptable. It is a basic core knowledge that all should have. Instead we have a generation of kids with meaningless 2.1 degrees in media studies. Truly, our pensions? Kiss goodbye to them – we are all f*cked if the current education standards continue or worsen. I believe 2.1′s are obtained with 6 tokens from Shreaded Wheat these days are they not?
    As for the return of Labour in 2015, I don’t think so mate. Britain is a naturally conservative country and with the financial storm receeding over the next year or so combined with the indelible image of Labour’s total failure with the economy (early in to the recession, last out), public finances, crime (spoke to a London police office a few weeks back who confirmed that the violent crime figures ARE fixed by the home office by means of stopping the Police investigating crimes that show culprits as belonging to ethnic communities so as to not offend them and thus stop them appearing in the figures…) and immigration (Labour have NO idea who is walking the streets of the UK having completely lost control of our borders) I think that unless Cameron totally balls things up (unlikely) then we will have at least 3 terms of Conservative government whilst Labour self destructs.
    The British public only lets Labour govern as a last resort when the tories are in turmoil. They are no longer so, having finally sorted themselves out after so many years of Thatcher.
    The times they are a changing. We are going back to how we naturally are – conservative. Sorry Steve, but history doesn’t lie. The tories have had power more often than Labour. That’s not going to change. Blair appeared to be an exceptional leader (and was for a while until the deal he made with the devil and invaded Iraq unecessarily). But now with Gordon the Moran it’s very much business as usual for Labour – Foot, Kinnock, Brown ….

  • Donald Keycock

    Well said Daran. Apparently I just don’t get it.