Ignoring the budget

I've not been following the "serious" coverage of Darling's latest bodge-it. I'm frightened that closer examination would just reveal that he's still way out of his depth. I don't imagine he's any more clueless than Her Majesty's opposition, or most of the other people who entirely failed to see this coming, but I'm getting the distinct impression that he's not ahead of the curve.

There seems to be a general consensus that Vince Cable is the man with a plan, or at least some grasp of what's gone so wrong and what to do about it - but, of course, he's light years away from the levers of power. I've just looked at an interesting review of Cable's book about the crisis, The Storm, (along with Philip Augar's Chasing Alpha, another post-mortem of financial doomsday), which ends with these (now) chilling words:

In a speech at Mansion House in 2004, Gordon Brown bellowed to an audience of bankers: “What you have achieved for the financial services sector, we as a country now aspire to achieve for the whole of the British economy.” The British will be living with that achievement for years.

You can read the whole review here. I'm almost tempted to read Cables's book itself, but who am I kidding? I can't even defeat the slugs or ants or whatever the beasties are that have eaten half the veg we've planted this year (despite having conscientiously thrown old coffee grounds and crushed eggshells on the ground around the tender young plants - supposedly a sure-fire slug deterrent). When I understand garden pests, maybe I'll move on to trying to understand the meltdown of the global financial system and how we all got to be a zillion pound in debt...