Blair and Brown - deliberately blowing up England's Property Bubble

Before I became a blogger and began Ironies I was an active contributor to the Financial Times FT Forums on a wide range of topics. One such was "Rate Tony Blair's Performance" and in considering the import of my earlier post today on Gordon Brown having set out to deliberately over inflate England's property market I pondered what I had had to say on that topic in the FT Forum and came across this #5002535 of 2422 posted by NM (my signature in those debates) on 11th December 2002 at 10:31 am.

"Reading markets by the First Lord of the Treasury

Could there have been a worse possible moment between the date in 1997, when following their election victory the Blairs sold their Islington house and the fourth calendar quarter of 2002, for buying two speculative flats in the far from dynamic Bristol property market? Any who might argue the timing is good are referred to the FT.Com UK Property Market Bubble Forum.

Disregarding the tabloid brouhaha, what does this tell us about our Prime Minister who guides the nation through these turbulent economic times.

First let us dispose of the idea that he did not know of their purchase. I find this absolutely impossible to believe, even before the tearful statement by Mrs Blair when we were supposed to empathise over the money from the sale of their Islington flat being the families sole asset. If that is indeed the case it would be even stranger if she invested such an amount in property without her husbands input and consent.

Blair therefore proves himself stupid. I wouldn't trust anyone who made such a decision in today's economic environment with a five pound note, let alone the direction of the nation."

Refresh your memory on these flats from here and here.

Now clearly I was wrong about the direction of the UK Property market from 2003 and for the next several years, as were most of the contributors to the site mentioned FT.Com UK Property Market Bubble Forum, but none of us were to know that Gordon Brown was about to change the basis for calculating inflation when appointing a new Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and thereafter preside over an absurd ramping up of property prices at ridiculous lending levels. Although here is a thought in reading my post above "Did Cherie and Tony know?"