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Sarkozy insults PM's economic policies

Nigel Morris, Deputy political editor

Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown at a financial crisis summit in Paris last October

AFP/GETTY

Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown at a financial crisis summit in Paris last October

Gordon Brown is heading for a showdown with Nicolas Sarkozy after the French President scorned his handling of the economic crisis.

Mr Sarkozy provoked anger in Downing Street when he vowed not to repeat Mr Brown's "mistakes" and dismissed as a failure his decision to cut the rate VAT in an effort to stimulate spending.

Officials at the Elysée Palace sought to smooth over the diplomatic row after Britain protested about the comments, but the Prime Minister's spokesman made clear the Government's deep irritation over the incident. He said: "The Elysée have been in contact this morning to assure us that these remarks were not meant as a critique of UK economic policy – which is nice."

The spokesman also suggested that Mr Sarkozy, who made a high-profile state visit to Britain with his wife Carla last year, was playing to a domestic audience with his remarks.

The two men will meet later this month at a gathering of EU leaders to discuss their response to the deepening recession. Downing Street officials indicated Mr Brown would challenge the French President over his remarks.

The comments are a severe blow to the Prime Minister's argument that he is building international consensus for his blueprint for tackling the global downturn. He has also regularly charged David Cameron, the Tory leader, of being out of step with world opinion over combating the recession.

Mr Sarkozy's outburst came in a 90-minute interview carried on three French television channels. He said: "Gordon Brown's decision to cut VAT has absolutely not worked. Cutting VAT by two points doesn't incite people to buy if they are scared about their own future. If anything, consumption in Britain has gone down."

Challenged last night over his plans to boost the economy by infrastructure spending rather than tax cuts, he responded: "Britain is cutting taxes. That will bring them nothing. Consumption continues to decrease in Britain."

His broadside against the cut in VAT from 17.5 to 15 per cent touched a raw nerve for the Prime Minister, coming just days after Wouter Bos, the Dutch Finance Minister, derided the VAT cut as "not a very wise thing to do".

Germany has also rejectedcutting sales taxes and its Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrück, accused Mr Brown of "crass Keynesianism".

Downing Street insisted that it was too early to judge the effect of the reduced VAT rate, which will apply until the end of the year, pointing to a study that suggested it could boost spending levels by 1.2 per cent during 2009.

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Hoist with your own petard
[info]49niner wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 06:24 am (UTC)
Having boasted that he's "saving the world", Gordon Brown is in danger of being hoist with his own petard. The fact is that neither he, nor his Tory opponents have a clear idea of what to do about the current financial crisis.

President Sarkozy may be well be the pot calling the kettle black. In common with all international leaders in politics and business, he and Mr Brown are feeling their way out of this mess like a blind man with a stick.

The economic status quo of the past 30 years is unravelling before our eyes. It is riddled with greed, corruption and mindless ideology. We need new economic and political leadership. Silly spats like this are of no consequence.

Sarko is correct.
[info]zansal wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 08:12 am (UTC)
I watched the full interview on France 2. The President also said that unlike France, the UK could not invest in UK Industry because there wasn't any UK industry to invest in. Also correct.

The UK economy can only boom if it continues to borrow more money than it creates. Over the last 4 or 5 years the UK economy has expanded simply because there was easy access to cheap credit.

Brown has definitely abolished the "boom and bust" culture and replaced it with a "sustained boom and sustained bust" economic culture.

Sarkozy is a clever guy - he's made it clear early on that Europe will not bail the UK out of it's debt culture.
Re: Sarko is correct.
[info]ben_henry wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 10:22 pm (UTC)
ZINZIN , I like your monkey scribble,(the hands are very crucifix like) but obviously you understand that even the most naively or insanely run economy could not borrow more money than it creates. However, if you were obsessed by bling - bling & yesterdays top models...
Gormless Gordon
[info]originaleskimo wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:07 am (UTC)
What's going on? First, Jeremy Clarkson, who spends his entire life acting like an overgrown schoolboy and talking rubbish actually says something that makes sense, then Sarkozy does the same!

Considering that Brown hankered after the top job for 10 years, it is a delicious irony that he finally succeeded in becoming Prime Minister just as the sh*t was about to hit the fan, especially when one considers that as Chancellor he did more than anyone else to create the domestic crisis. The man is a total moron.

It's also worth noting that whilst Clarkson apologised for his 'one eyed' jibe, he didn't apologise for calling Brown an idiot, or Scottish. It must be true; bad luck does come in threes.
It's Vat stupid
[info]pilsden wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:13 am (UTC)
One of GBrowns most annoying habits is the rabbit out of the hat,the 10p tax fiasco and now Vat.
Brown tells us this is a different type of recession,so he must understand that the fall in demand is not price(inflation) but expenditure driven by debt cost and spikes in commodities.The consumer gets it there is a need to rebalance household budgets.So against that why Vat either he doesn't understand or is proving Clarkson right.It is clear this is all about money and confidence fiscal action is a secondary tool probably about confidence and therefore comes after the money bit.We are in danger of needing the money printers and having a vat stimulus at the same time will add further risk.I thank Sarkosy and others including the IMf senior economist for pointing out that this doesn't work and may be his biggest grandstanding and rush to get in first mistake
Re: It's Vat stupid
[info]indpenden_mind wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 01:24 pm (UTC)
Mr.Brown suffers from tunnel vision (in his good eye) and can only see the way to maintain himself in power, indefinitely if possible. In order to achieve this, first, he has had to "save the world" and as he seems to be running out of money (even after borrowing billions in the good times), he sees the way forward as taking away money from anyone who may have any, like the tax-payer and the saver and giving help to the overextended who have already exceeded their borrowing limit in order that they can borrow more and spend it with the ostensible objective of supporting the British economy. The only problem seems to be that the British economy is not manufacturing anything and they have to consume products made, for example, in China. At the same time, by reducing the interest rate to zero, he has effectively devalued the pound by around 30%, but he seems to see this as a good thing as he said it would help the exporters. However, the few exporters which may remain unfortunately have to import raw materials and energy in order to fabricate their products, increasing the cost of these exports by the same 30% as the pound has devalued. Zero benefit. However, he still anticipates getting a few votes from the mortgage holders whose monthly outgoings have become more acceptable at the cost of a few pensioners starving to death or suffering from hypothermia, but then, as the representative of the Bank of England said, "Savers don't matter". Forgive me for being a bit cynical but as a pensioner with savings living in the Eurozone, my income has halved in a matter of months and, if I were still living in the U.K., I wouldn't be voting Labour.
Flash Gordon does it again
[info]johnsmith007 wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:37 am (UTC)
Mr Sarkozy obviously is not aware that Flash Gordon has saved the world.
It does not take much to work out that the vat reduction would do nothing to encourage people to spend what they haven't got. Everyone knew, everyone except Gordon.
We may have to bale this fool & his little island out
[info]sarum09 wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:45 am (UTC)
Is there an undertone,does the rest of europe fear they may have to bale us out.
The way we are going we may end up bankcrupt , France & Germany could well have to bale us out..So Mr Brown you could end up as the worst PM this island has ever had,,,FOOL
Here's Tae the Non-Doms
[info]carlislemack wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:46 am (UTC)
Unfortunately for us Sarko hit the nail on the head when he said that there wasn't any UK industry left: under Brown's stewardship we have lost 1 millions jobs in manufacturing; sold the only British company, Westinghouse, with a nuclear engineering capability to the Japanese; and allowed EDF, E.on and others to buy our key power utilities. (We, of course are not permitted to buy into their markets). Now, after 10 years of dithering, Labour decides that we need more nuclear power generating capacity to avoid energy blackouts, so now have to go cap in hand to the French to get them built. You couldn't make it up.
[info]robertclondon wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 09:57 am (UTC)
"Sarkozy is a clever guy - he's made it clear early on that Europe will not bail the UK out of it's debt culture."

Ha, ha, ha. You've got to be joking! After we've been bailing out France's bloated farming sector for decades. Who are you going to get to pay for it (and all your other European 'grands projets') if that happens, eh? Time we stopped allowing France to fiddle the EU system with its trade barriers and hidden subsidies.

France may have much better public services, but French industrial production was 7% lower than in 2000 in November 2008 (http://www.insee.fr/en/themes/theme.asp?theme=17&sous_theme=4&nivgeo=0&type=2), and France has a rocketing balance of payments deficit and higher unemployment, so sorry Sarko, but we won't be looking to France for lessons on how to solve our economic problems.

18 months
[info]zansal wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 10:32 am (UTC)
Sarkozy has been in power for 18 months. He can hardly be responsible for the CAP. France has also had an incompetent Socialist Party in power for many years that has built high unemployment, made french industry uncompetitive and created those populist hidden trade barriers you talk about.

Sarko is the first French President to attempt to break that cycle. So, no - I'm not joking. Sarko is very clued up and has one 1 major advantage over Brown - Brown has just over 1 year before he needs to call an election - Sarko has 3.5
Stating the obvious
[info]findempire wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 10:33 am (UTC)
With personal bankruptcies topping 200 a day, you don't have to be Einstein to understand that Crash Gordon has screwed up big time. Crash himself let the cat out of the bag with his Freudian slip about "depression." Sarko jumped on Gordon's "saviour of the world" bandwagon and stayed as long as the public were buying it but when the old Scottish freighter started listing heavily (as evidenced by his recently plummeting polls), he jumped ship, acutely PR-conscious rodent that he is.
Good for Sarko
[info]rozr wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 12:34 pm (UTC)
Well said, Sarko. Help Gordon to resign, that would really be helpful to us English.........
Nanny Brown
[info]taxfries wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 12:46 pm (UTC)
A worrying aspect of the New Labour movement is the ideological certainty of its ministers - be it on social policy, foreign policy, or economics - New Labour knows (or professes to know) best how to micromanage every aspect of human activity. Brown's propogandist slight-of-hand delivery on spending announcements and policy initiatives have been a source of irritation to me since 1997.

Those of us who are British subjects have to bow to the will of a very powerful Executive, but Sarko doesn't. He's quite at liberty to point out the flaws in Brownian economics and take his country on a divergent course from the Orwellian dystopia which finger-wagging New Labour has created in the UK. Whether this dystopia ends up impoverished remains to be seen.
Why is dissent not allowed?
[info]jonny_socialist wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 02:16 pm (UTC)
Why everytime a politician criticises another politician from another countries policies is there this uproar? People are allowed their opinions. Acting like spoilt children is not going to help or allow the person being criticised to realise they might actually be wrong.
Brown's right, the world's wrong
[info]ndld wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 02:30 pm (UTC)
How much longer can Labour operate in this delusional state that Gordon Brown can only ever be right and the rest of mankind can only ever be wrong. The slightest criticism of Gordon Brown's handling of the economy - Sarkozy, Clarkson, Steinbruck, there'll be more - and out come the Labour attack dogs in their hordes. This government increasingly resembles the yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, floundering in a sea of falsehood and delusion, in which the British economy slowly sinks. Sarko's dead right: the residual UK manufacturing base is too small to rescue the rest of the economy on the back of a weak pound. It was wiped out by the Tories in two instalments: 79-82 and then 89-92.
Brown
[info]rogerslade wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 05:30 pm (UTC)
Another bad day for Brown - criticised by Sarky and, more importantly, Clarkson.
Re: Brown
[info]indpenden_mind wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 06:09 pm (UTC)
The "One-eyed, Scottish idiot" comment was not so bad after all. The "One-eyed" and the "Scottish" are merely adjectives describing our prime minister. The "Idiot" could be considered an insult if it were not true. After all, I believe that in law, libel is only libel if the comment is untrue.
Re: Brown
[info]ben_henry wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 10:06 pm (UTC)
Indeed, and it won't get in the way of the outrageously dumb, "Dirty digger" comments we have to endure from those harking back to the rose tinted (or should that be rinsed) mental case Thatcher idyll.
Re: Brown
[info]ben_henry wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 10:13 pm (UTC)
This Clarkson who you relate to, is it the loner who's fantasies gravitate around cars?.
sarko show
[info]sarahfromfrance wrote:
Saturday, 7 February 2009 at 08:06 pm (UTC)
Interesting to read all the comments on Sarkozy's attack on Britain! Don't worry, during his speech, he did the same to the Czech republic for being guilty of making cheaper cars than the French, and Germany for God knows what. Instead of giving credit to what he said, just do like a lot of French people: ignore it all! All he did yet again is do his little Sarko Show, giving the impression he cares for the poor, that he will do all he can to help us all. All intelligent people in France know that he thinks he is Zorro here to save the World. You anly have to see the very cruel measures he is pushing for. When he critizises such or such head of State,he does so to be able to get on the King's throne! So please, think before you give him any notice!
Re: sarko show
[info]cronyblatcher wrote:
Sunday, 8 February 2009 at 07:40 pm (UTC)
If you do a little research, I suspect you'll find that those rightly criticised, are those who most enthusiastically committed suicide by embracing the 'Anglo Saxon' school of 'business', and are now a Trojan horses, and threat to the Union's well-being.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,604523,00.html
Sarko insults??
[info]bgarvie wrote:
Sunday, 8 February 2009 at 08:41 am (UTC)
Will Brown the so called 'superman' take any notice of Sarko? The man who falsly claimed to have saved the World; how dare a French leader and EU leader criticise him.

So much for the entente cordial.
as someone said above
[info]cronyblatcher wrote:
Sunday, 8 February 2009 at 07:26 pm (UTC)
Britain, bananarepublicanised by three decades of blatcherist government, doesn't have any industry left to invest in. All of the British eggs were put into the basket of organised economic crime as an 'industry' run by non accountable, spectactularly incompetent, jolly good chaps. Now it doesn't have even a banana crop to sell to the world and even the market for money laundering has dried up.

On the fallout of state bankruptcy here's an informative Spiegel article:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,604523,00.html

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