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Gordon Brown’s response to the economic crisis has been too little, too late.

For years I warned him of the oncoming economic problems. Unsustainable levels of personal debt, mostly secured against the illusory ‘wealth’ of rising, vastly inflated property prices. An economy based so heavily on debt was never going to be in a fit state to deal with global shocks like the credit crunch.

And so it has proved. Gordon Brown is now facing the consequences of his years of inaction. The housing bubble has burst. Unemployment is rising fast. Tens of thousands of families are losing their homes.

With people struggling with massive debts and fast rising bills it is now almost inevitable that the UK is heading for recession. Gordon Brown used to boast we were better prepared than our competitors for a downturn. Yet the OECD’s respected economic forecasters now predict we will fare worst among the world’s seven leading economies (G7) in the current crisis.

What Britain needs now, and urgently, is practical action to help people who are struggling – to put money back in their pockets, to cut their energy bills, and help them keep their homes.

Gordon Brown and Labour can’t offer that. They got us into this mess. Now they are veering between complacency and panic. Dithering on key decisions, muddling along on half measures. David Cameron and the Conservatives won’t offer it.

At a time when those on the breadline are struggling more than for a generation, their top priority is tax cuts for millionaires. It’s not good enough to just keep muddling along and hoping. We need a serious plan to get Britain’s economy up and running again. That is why Nick Clegg and I have put together the Liberal Democrat Fairer Future Economic Recovery Plan.

Our plan would: · Put more money in people’s pockets – tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes,· Stop unnecessary home repossessions and provide more affordable housing,· Make energy companies reinvest their windfall profits in cutting bills, and· Deliver extra help for people in debt or who lose their jobs. And we will bring the free-wheeling, ‘anything goes’ short-termism of the City to an end.

We cannot continue with a culture where bankers pocket big bonuses for taking reckless risks, but when things go wrong government and taxpayers have to step in to pick up the pieces. There is only one party in Britain today with a serious and credible plan to get Britain’s economy back on its feet – and to provide real help to those struggling in the meantime. That is the Liberal Democrats.

Best wishes,

Vincent Cable MP

Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor
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It’s been a month of big surprises. And the biggest was saved until last night.

The US government, after a week of desperate wrangling, failed to pull a rabbit out of the hat to save the banking system, the economy, and the Western world in general. It seems that Republican senators decided that if they’re to have any chance of being voted back in come November, then they’d better start acting like fiscal conservatives. And so they blocked Hank Paulson’s $700bn ‘bail-out’ of Wall Street.

It’s a fine time to get an attack of conscience. After all, under the Bush administration, the state has grown ever-more bloated, and ever-more intrusive, just like our own state here in the UK. But it’s never too late, as they say.

So what happens now? Well, you can expect a lot more editorials about the death of capitalism for one thing. And more bank failures for another. But I’m an optimist (believe it or not).

The economic fall-out from all this will be brutal – nothing can stop that. But if we’re lucky, this might just be a turning point. We might just be witnessing the death knell for big government…
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The main UK and other European share indexes have fallen sharply in early trading after a US financial rescue plan failed to gain backing.

With the US House of Representatives rejecting the $700bn (£380bn) rescue deal, the UK’s FTSE 100 was down 3%, while Germany’s Dax was 1.4% lower. for more click here

US-led efforts to tackle the al-Qaeda group are not regarded as successful, an opinion poll carried out for the BBC World Service suggests.

Some 29% of people said the “war on terror” launched by President George W Bush in 2001 had had no effect on the Islamist militant network. for more click here

A flu virus more deadly than any seen in two decades is threatening Britain.

The strain originates in Australia where it has claimed hundreds of lives, including those of children.

Called Brisbane H3N2, it is so virulent that health chiefs have had to change the make-up of flu vaccines to deal with it. for more click here

Baroness Warsi, the shadow community cohesion minister, said Labour’s “state-driven multiculturalism” had cemented division in society.

A Tory government would ensure all immigrants learnt English and schoolchildren were properly taught British history, she said.

The Baroness told the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham her parents, who came to the UK from the Punjab, “instinctively knew about integration”. for more click here

Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter carrying military weapons defiantly demanded $US20 million ($24 million) in ransom despite being surrounded by three foreign warships on Sunday.

The spokesman for the pirates, contacted by AFP via satellite telephone, confirmed they were surrounded by three foreign war vessels off Somalia’s central coast and said the ship’s crew was “safe and not harmed”. for more click here

The new boss of Bradford & Bingley has only just got his feet under the desk before it is about to be whisked away.
Richard Pym, 59, joined the bank on August 18, which means he has been chief executive for a total of just 30 working days. for more click here

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Only a year ago, Asif Ali Zardari was best known as the husband of Benazir Bhutto, a highflying businessman with a taste for fine living, polo and, his critics allege, bribes. He was a man who spent 11 years in jail while awaiting trial on unproven corruption charges, the stress of which, according to court papers filed by doctors last year and viewed by a British newspaper, induced bouts of dementia and depression. for more click here

It said mortgage lending dived to just £143 million during August – its lowest since this data was first collected in April 1993 and a fraction of the £2.998 billion lent in July.

The bank also revealed that mortgage approvals fell to 32,000 last month from 33,000 in July. for more click here