The Worst Chancellor Ever?

From the moment Brown stood up to give his infamous Robert Maxwell Memorial Budget in 1997, most people with experience in finance feared that the New Labour experiment could end in tears. His stealth tax on pension funds was the first marker on the road to disaster. He then sold off our gold reserves having first told the world and creating a final bottom to a decade of stagnation. His system of financial regulation dividing powers between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the FSA was absolutely loony. Eddie George knew this, threatened to resign, and unforgivably did not carry through on his threat. His next cunning plan was tax credits which predictably proved to be a complete disaster zone. Then there was his infamous corporation tax threshold, introduced the teeth of all expert advice, which encouraged every Jack the Lad to engage in outrageous tax avoidance. Underscoring his reputation as a fantasist, he claimed to have ended boom and bust while steering the property market to a spectacular bust. His abolition of the 10p tax rate hilariously left 2 million low paid workers paying an effective tax rate of up to 70%.  Finally his public-sector net borrowing hit £28 billion last month, the highest on record, marking him out as the worst ever Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Via http://jucameron.wordpress.com]