Fraser Nelson

Gordon Brown does not have much of a personal “backstory” but he does talk about his family. When he’s feeling guilty about something, he mentions his father. But today, speaking to the Welsh Labour Party, he again talks about a figure we heard about a few days ago: his grandfather. “Like so many here I come from a family whose grandfather went without work during much of the 1930s. A grandfather whose small savings gave his son, my father, the chance of an education, the first in our family to go to university. And the lesson of those days is that even in the worst of times families helped each other, supported each other, came to the aid of each other through thousands of acts of friendship caring and support.

Brownies galore in our PM’s interview with the Economist. So many, in fact, that I thought I do a quick Fisk:   The Economist: The big worry seems to be the deficit—the deficit. What should the message should be? Gordon Brown: I actually think that the first thing that we’ve got to do as a global community—and I said it this morning and I’ll say it again—is that the reforms of the global financial system are not complete. As far as Britain is concerned, we are dealing with a one-off hit as a result of globalisation. FN: Let us pause, here, to consider the brazenness. Brown’s policies pumped the UK economy up with the steroids of debt. The banking collapse hit us harder than any country because he took the wildest risks.

“I’m not perfect” Gordon Brown said in his speech today – knowing that, in a couple of hours, we’ll hear details of the many ways he is not perfect, when the first extracts of Andrew Rawnsley’s book are published. He has got his defence in early on Channel Four news. Here is a transcript: Q: You know tomorrow there are going to be a whole slew of new allegations being made by Andrew Rawnsley, so let's hear about you at work. Do you get angry at your staff? Do you swear at them? Do you throw things? GORDON BROWN: If I get angry, I get angry with myself. Q: Do you throw things? GORDON BROWN: No, I throw the newspapers on the floor or something like that, but please… Q: Have you ever hit anyone? GORDON BROWN: I have never hit anybody in my life.

The new issue of The Spectator is out today, and here are a few highlights. We've led on football, for once, with cover image by Mark Summers of David Beckham in the England away strip. Here are my top five features: 1. The very strange death of English Football. Mihir Bose, former BBC Sports Editor, has written about the weird paradox gripping the game: the Premiership is a global business, but half its clubs are insolvent. The cash is not only driving many of them (like Portsmouth) to the wall, but driving out English players. Just 17 percent of players who have appeared in this year's Premiership are British under-25s. When the Premership started in 1992, it was 44 percent. We also looked up the accounts for every single premiership club to find around £3bn of debt.

I couldn't let today pass without a response to Danny Finkelstein. We do agree on the ends, but not the means. And, as he says, this debate mirrors one about the methods of reform. So, let¹s go through his points. 1. 'I am afraid I think Fraser overestimates (a lot) how politically difficult this is all going to be. And how personally painful for a lot of people. And how technically difficult.' Painful, yes, but necessary ­ and it will be resented if Cameron is not straight about the cuts he will have to make. But how painful? Gordon Brown¹s great intellectual victory is to persuade the Tories that 'cuts' can only mean frontline services cut ­ so (as Brown once said) 10% cuts 'mean schools close and hospitals close.

Ten days on and Danny Finkelstein still seems to be upset with me for my Keith Joseph lecture, where I said the Tories risked being ensnared by Brown's 'investment v cuts' rhetoric. For reasons that I'm still not quite sure of, Danny hates the idea of cuts. He may have (and I hope he didn't) take it personally when I said it was precisely this attitude amongst the Conservatives that created the climate for the fiscal crisis Britain is now facing. Over the last decade, Brown increased spending by 16 percent of GDP (see graph below)- not only faster than any developed country, but faster than any major country of the postwar period. Why? What was the rush? Germany and Japan in the 30s jacked up their state spending to a similar degree, but they had their reasons.

John Rentoul today puts Trevor Kavanagh and myself in the dock for demanding "massive spending cuts" and concludes that if we "had any power" we would be "about as helpful to Cameron as Sarah Palin was to John McCain" but believes Cameron "will hold to his strategic course". I mean: massive cuts. How crazy is that? Surely only swivel-eyed maniacs would be planning cuts - real, hard-core ideologues - would plan that when the deficit is a mere 13 percent of GDP. Surely? It struck me, reading this, that John is unaware of the massive cuts which Labour is planning (understandable, as they were in the small print and have still not been picked up by Fleet St).

The debate about cuts so far lacks any numbers, so I thought CoffeeHouses might like some. Contrary to what he claims Darling is planning cuts – but he just didn’t print the spending totals in his Pre-Budget Report (lack of space, one presumes). The Institute for Fiscal Studies, which produces its Green Budget tomorrow, has worked out what will be left for departments after debt interest, dole et. It amounts to a 10 percent cut. Here’s the table. Yet the Tories plan for DFID to be 0.7 percent of GDP by 2013 – ie, rising by 63 percent - and health will not be cut. Cameron has indicated that he will not cut much in 2010-11, so let’s assume that the Labour spending rises for various departments go ahead as planned. Results below. The result?