G20 Thoughts

I've been on holiday to Dubai, so I haven't been able to blog recently.

Might as well give my thoughts on the latest excuse for a riot in my home city.

Personally, I doubt that the economy is exactly stimulation-capable at the moment. Metaphorically speaking, it's in a coma having banter with a lairy Mancunian detective (BTW, watching the first episode of Ashes to Ashes on the plane home, I remembered just how awesome Mr. Hunt can be- he gets three Crowning Moments of Awesome in the first episode can be).

What we're going to need, basically, is damage control- ensuring that the exchequers of some of the poorer countries still get decently revenue, that jobs are protected and that confidence doesn't go down any further (in the latter case, we need to drop out the rest of the bad debt news now to get it done with).

This is a step in the right direction, but things will get worse before they get better.

I expect the economy will recover in a couple of years. I'd say 2010 is too optimistic. Personally, I'm going for 2011.

If it does recover before the next election, Mr. Brown will have the thanks of a grateful world. If not, Mr. Cameron had better remember that he was responsible for none of the recovery and that he opposed many elements of it.