Brown abandons Sterling

The IHT reports the latest speech by the odious Gordon Brown (self-serving implied by The Times on which Guido also has a say here) as follows: Britain does not target exchange rates, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday, giving a clear signal that the government is unlikely to take steps to stem the pound's slide.... "British policy is not based on targeting the exchange rate. It is based on targeting interest rates through inflation and it is our low inflation that is absolutely central to the policies that we are pursuing," he said.... The problem for the disgraced and incompetent UK Government as they preside over the rubble of the economy (2,500 jobs to go in steel making and Barratts Shoes on the High Street being this mornings tally) is that they have allowed most of the nation's tangible assets to be gobbled up by their EU neighbours while accepting huge payment obligations denominated in strengthening euros as the price for the EU Parliament's subsidies of their corrupted party or their self-glorifying antics an a wider stage. (If you personally incline towards the former explanation then see my blog and other coverage on the tip of the iceberg revealed yesterday by the Sunday Times regarding the House of Lords and consider why just recently reporting on the Labour Party's enormous financial deficit seems to have been confined to history!) So if sterling continues to fall will the Danegeld of Britain's EU payments be either desirable or affordable - especially given that the UK is now wrecked so there remains little left to ravage? Afterthought! This from Rudyard Kipling:

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

And the nation that pays it is lost!"