More from The Week

Not all bankers are bad people. Not all banks are surviving only with the support of the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Not all bankers’ bonuses are rewards for failure. It is important to state these things, obvious though they may be, because Downing Street has undoubtedly poured petrol on the bonfire of rage about bankers’ bonuses as a tactic to deflect public discontent over Gordon Brown’s handling of the economic crisis — a strategy that backfired when it emerged that a former Brown adviser, Sir James Crosby, had allegedly sacked someone for warning about the risks HBOS was taking.

As Britain awoke to the stunning snowscapes of Monday morning, the nation could not make its mind up whether it was on the set of a huge Richard Curtis film, congratulating itself on its social cohesion and snowball-throwing geniality — or whether we were all suddenly locked in a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which no amenities worked, no schools were open, the roads were hauntingly empty, and a phalanx of plague-ridden zombies was probably just round the corner. Half of the British mind wanted to make merry; the other half acted as if a natural disaster had occurred on a par with Hurricane Katrina.

When an institution is plagued by internal feuds, a loss of public trust and a muddled sense of mission, the elevation of an internal candidate to its helm is rarely a matter for celebration. But the appointment of Sir Paul Stephenson to be the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is an exception to this generality. Unlike his predecessor, Sir Ian Blair, and his chief rival for the job, Sir Hugh Orde — head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland — Stephenson is not a politician in uniform. The new commissioner, who still commutes from his home in rural Lancashire, should bring a much-needed dose of common sense to the Met and return it to its core mission of fighting crime.

Even with the sharp political mind of Peter Mandelson on his team, it is possible that Gordon Brown failed to foresee one political consequence of his scheme to borrow and spend his way out of the recession. How can the government complain about tax cuts proposed by the opposition when the government has itself abandoned all pretence to fiscal rectitude? A few months ago, ministers would have responded swiftly and savagely to David Cameron’s promise to free all basic-rate taxpayers from paying tax on their savings income. The words ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ would have tripped off their tongues like sparks from a fire. Thanks to this handout to the rich, they would have added, the sick would go unhealed and children would go uneducated.

When David Cameron agreed last June to let his chief strategist work from California for six months, it seemed a timely break from what was threatening to become a dull job. Gordon Brown looked finished, and his party too weak to depose him. British politics threatened to be a comedy of errors stumbling on until the middle of 2010 — leaving plenty of time for Steve Hilton to go abroad, get married and send email advice from beside the swimming pool. From there, he must have watched in horror as British politics changed utterly. Even his fortnightly flights home will not have been enough to keep up with the bewildering speed of the Brown bust.

January 2008 Jacqui Smith nips out for a kebab in a bid to look Modern, but stupidly reveals that she’s scared of being stabbed. This gives us an idea and we begin arranging similar outings for Dave on the mean streets of North Kensington where he is snapped in a variety of Ordinary places including the late night Spar (the food shop, not the Thai massage place on the corner, obviously). As Northern Rock goes wrong I predict recession — not bad for a girl! February Fly-on-the-wall documentary revealing how Dave eats breakfast only gets mixed reviews. Undaunted, we begin the now legendary process of finessing our historic commitment to match Labour spending plans.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) was one of the most arresting political events of modern times. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) was one of the most arresting political events of modern times. Alistair Darling’s delivery was as flat as ever, but what he had to say was truly dramatic: it amounted to a bonfire of the government’s own principles of fiscal management, and a colossal bet on the Treasury’s ability to issue undreamt-of volumes of government debt. His package of measures was predicated on a bafflingly confident forecast that the recession will be over by the third quarter of 2009, and growth will return to its long-term trend by 2011.

The hint of tax cuts made by Gordon Brown this week is a piece of political audacity which could only be matched were the Conservatives suddenly to commit themselves to the common ownership of the means of production. This is a Prime Minister who for years has sought to beat down the opposition by claiming that the meanest of tax cuts would result in havoc in schools and hospitals; who suddenly, facing a budget deficit of at least £100 billion this year, has decided that, after all, there is some money in the kitty to reduce the tax burden. It is scarcely necessary to point out that any tax cuts which do appear in the pre-budget report will be a pre-electoral bribe. Even without the Prime Minister’s proposed Keynesian spending splurge, the government could not afford tax cuts.