General Election – Will You Vote For Gordon Brown?

o The Bank of England, which has managed Britain’s gold reserves for more than 300 years, was never asked for its advice on whether Britain should sell the gold. A senior Bank of England executive said the timing of the sale was “not debated”.

o At a secret meeting with senior gold traders, Bank of England officials were warned that the proposed auctions would achieve the worst price for taxpayers. The officials are understood to have agreed with the analysis but said they were powerless to influence the Treasury.

o Several Asian countries including China are named by an insider as having bought the gold “on the cheap” from the Treasury. The Chinese may have made more than £1 billion from Brown’s botched sell-off.

Sir John also warned of bleak economic times ahead, adding: “It’s beginning to unravel in quite a serious way. The economy is running into serious difficulty.”

Pointing out that Mr Brown as Chancellor introduced the financial regulatory regime that allowed the near-collapse of Northern Rock, Sir John predicted that the bank’s failure would cost taxpayers more than the £3.4 billion his Government spent trying to keep the pound in the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.

“We don’t yet know what the cost of Northern Rock to the economy will be, but it is quite likely that it will exceed the cost to the taxpayer of Black Wednesday,” he said.

Sir Victor Blank and Gordon Brown have made a bad banking crisis worse by fatally contaminating one of Britain’s few good banks. Mr Brown was the foster parent. People should remember this the next time either of them claims to have acted competently during this crisis. Sir Victor should go now; the electorate can decide on Mr Brown’s fate when he deigns to call an election.

The survey of over 250 authorities shows that county councils, facing elections this year, have kept their rises below 4 per cent, while London authorities, following Boris Johnson’s example, have limited their increases to as little as 1.2 per cent.

A handful of police authorities have however defied the Government and confirmed increases of well over 5 per cent for their share of council tax. The highest hikes have been set by Derbyshire Police, 8.7 per cent and Greater Manchester Police at 7.5 per cent.

“The cost of this will seem very high to hard-pressed families, especially at a time of extreme economic hardship and trillion-pound liabilities. The public will wonder if this is another example of the Government’s legendary inability to get value for money from their taxes.”