Gordon Brown – Socialist by Stealth

Gordon Brown has successfully been redistributing wealth from the well off to the poorest in our society. But he’s done it without much fanfare. He, Tony Blair and I (amongst many others) are all of similar age. We understand about ‘the limitations on a government’s power in a liberal democracy’ (see my last but one post and postings that are yet to come (tricky at present unless you can read my mind (not worth the effort) but they’ll be worth the wait)).

There’s a poorly written but still worth reading piece in the Observer today. "income has been redistributed to the poorest people since 1997 - not from the averagely wealthy but from the richest in society" it quotes Stuart Adam, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies as concluding.

Amusingly Mr Adam attributes the 'erroneous' belief that Brown has been "appalling for middle-income earners" "to the fact that journalists, who frequently pontificate on Brown's cruelty to the middle classes, consider themselves middle-income earners, when most are actually higher-income earners". Hah – journalists are one of the limitations on a government’s power in a liberal democracy (and so too are academics who also tend to be high earners (even if their salaries aren’t all that high)).