Balls up

Congratulations to my old friend, Ed Balls, the new shadow chancellor. Apart from his attachment to maintaining the deficit (one can become sentimental about one's own babies of course) I'm also expecting his tenure to signal some innovative revenue raising ideas.
After all, as I never tire of pointing out, when Balls and fellow minister Yvette Cooper hosted their wedding reception at the Cavendish Hotel, Eastbourne, in 1998, they secretly arranged with the venue for an extra £9 to be put on guests' overnight hotel bills to save the happy couple £2,520 on the cost of the reception.
Gordon Brown and then girlfriend Sarah Macauley were star guests at the bash which also included several senior ministers such as Chief Whip Nick Brown, multi -millionaire Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson, Treasury minister Dawn Primarolo and more than a dozen Labour MPs. A touching moment.

The end is Nye

Might Gordon Brown honestly be starting to regret getting into bed with the Goldman Sachs crowd?

The investment bank got its big break in Whitehall via its former banker, Gavyn Davies – who is married to Brown's former private secretary and the current director of government relations, Sue Nye.

Since then, political expediency has forced the PM to start branding the bank as "morally bankrupt", while calling for an immediate investigation into the Goldman's dealings. But any votes he might have won through that bit of spin were more than extinguished by today's gaffe of calling Labour voter Gillian Duffy "bigoted".

And who does the "clunking fist" blame for exposing him to Duffy? Er, Sue Nye.

Bernanke writes another type of sequel

Ben Bernanke - chairman of the Federal Reserve - knows a thing or two about financial crises, having written the definitive work on the Great Depression.
He's been grafting pretty hard over the past two years to make sure he doesn't have to pen the sequel, so we should listen to his criticisms today of Gordon Brown whose decision to strip the Bank of England of its supervisory role over banks led to a “destructive run” and a “major problem for the British economy”, according to the Fed chairman.
Well, we should listen again, that is. Bernanke has said all this before.
Back at a 2006 Treasury Select Committee hearing, chairman John McFall pointed out to Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King: "On a recent visit to the United States we had the opportunity to meet Ben Bernanke and he told us that he prefers to maintain the Federal Reserve's responsibility for banking regulation, due to possible co-ordination problems that might exist between the central bank and the separate regulator in the aftermath of a financial crisis."
King replied that he thought it "only a hypothetical risk".
D'oh!

The charming Mr Balls

Wannabe Chancellor Ed Balls has denied weekend reports that he's been using disgraced spinner Damian McBride to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions.
I'm sure he's speaking with conviction, but Balls can hardly get too uppity about accusations that he might consider stitching up the odd friend and colleague.
When he and fellow minister Yvette Cooper hosted their wedding reception at the Cavendish Hotel, Eastbourne, in 1998, the pair secretly arranged with the venue for an extra £9 to be put on guests' overnight hotel bills to save the happy couple £2,520 on the cost of the reception.
Gordon Brown and then girlfriend Sarah Macauley were star guests at the bash which also included several senior ministers such as Chief Whip Nick Brown, multi -millionaire Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson, Treasury minister Dawn Primarolo and more than a dozen Labour MPs. Charming.

Scapegoat Millionaire

Friends of Sir Fred Goodwin - convinced that the focus on his pension is a government ruse to deflect attention from the Prime Minister's own failings - are amused to note that the story has now moved on to RBS's sports sponsorship deals.
If Sir Fred wasn't Chubby Brown's preferred scapegoat, they argue, then the government's support for the probe would naturally extend to sports deals signed by another nationalised bank, Northern Rock. I wouldn't hold your breath, lads.

Point of order, Mr Speaker

The dreadful Harriet Harperson was deputising for Gordon Brown at PMQs today, putting in a woeful performance which must have finally scuppered her (optimistic) leadership hopes.
She also told the House an untruth, when dodging a question about who proposed a knighthood for Sir Fred Goodwin (supposedly a specialist subject of hers).
"It was for services to the Prince's Trust," she mused, carelessly.
Not so. Sir Fred received his gong for services to banking. Oh, do keep up, Minister.

An eye for an eye

Some BBC News 24 producer is either very brave or has a keen sense of irony.
With Jeremy Clarkson joining the list of embattled Auntie presenters after he called the Prime Minister a "one-eyed Scottish idiot", the news channel rolled out an "expert" commentator to reflect on this latest outrage.
His name? Gordon Banks (the MP for Ochil & Perthshire South, not the one-eyed former England goalie).

Flash Gordon: he saved every one of us!

I doubt I'm the quickest blogger to post this, but it is well worth a re-run: