peter mandelson

It is generally accepted I think that the Wall Street Crash and the subsequent depression started with a major sell-off on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday 24th October, 1929 - the so called "Black Thursday". The day of the worst one day fall on the New York Stock Exchange was the following Monday, "Black Monday", October 28th 1929, when it lost 13% of its opening value.

If all this does prove to be the start of a period of economic turbulance that will live in memories as long as the Wall Street Crash, I wonder which day will be identified as the start of it all. It seems to have been continuously bad news for weeks. Today, Russia's stock exchange index lost virtually 20%, having suspended trading twice. But what about the day the US bailed out AIG? Or when Hank Paulson got down on his knees to beg Nanci Pelosi to sign up to the $700bn bailout? Certainly that day I thought for the first time George Bush actually looked chillingly, almost menacingly sincere, much moreso than at any time during the Iraq conflict. The nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac perhaps? Or the failure of Lehmans? Or maybe just the day Peter Mandelson returned to the government!

When Gordon Brown came to power last year he promised a "government of all the talents". A year or so on and with what, 45,000,000 adults to choose from (most of whom of course would not touch his government, probably any government, with a very long barge-pole), one has to wonder just what talents he had in mind to bring this motley crew together:

Come to think of it, there's probably not one talent between them. These three, and this choice by the "dear leader" to bring them into government, just highlights for me how hopeless the very idea of state government is. There is no way that these people are somehow uniquely capable, any more than anyone else in the country, to make the momentous decisions we stupidly cede to the state to take on our behalf.