<a href="http://b-chu.livejournal.com/2490.html">Ben Chu: How Britain became a giant hedge fund</a>

Over on the Spectator's Coffee House blog, Fraser Nelson, uses some alarming statistics compiled by Michael Saunders, an economist from Citigroup, to castigate Gordon Brown. Britain's public debt as a proportion of GDP is low by international standards at the moment. Public debt levels in Germany, the US and Japan are all considerably larger proportionately. That, Brown argues, is the reason the Government has leeway to borrow more now in this crisis.