London Mayor on Labor govt.'s extravagance

Boris Johnson might be writing this about the "moribund" UK govt., but he might as well be speaking presciently about what's to befall us post-May 16. Perhaps the opposition should ask Gandhi's kook how her fairy dust is going to recover economy in 100 days. The thousands of crores thrown down the NREG gutter and other such dubious schemes will finally have to be dredged by aam aadmi, while Sonia and her mediaocre merryband play fiddle with public funds.

It was the sensational mismanagement of the Labour government, watercannoning good money down the drain in times of plenty and failing to put anything by for the downturn.

It believed its own demented propaganda about ending boom and bust, and using hundreds of taxpayers' billions in a ruthless and concerted attempt to expand the state sector – to the point where it amounts to about 70 per cent of the economy in a place such as Newcastle upon Tyne – and thereby to build up a huge and unbudgeable mass of people whose livelihoods depend upon the government and who are therefore more likely to vote Labour.

This government's colossal deficit is the result of Gordon Brown's decision to abandon prudence and to use the public purse to buy election victory.