No 98: Who should be Chancellor?

ON Monday,  Channel 4 had a debate between the 3 men below, each of whom wish to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain. Can you name them?

You could watch the hour long debate on 4od (the Channel 4 i player). But time is precious, and boredom is absolute.

Alternatively, read this post from the excellent "Monevator" blog, in which the writer gives his verdict on the 3 men's performances.

Personally, I am finding all the political parties' attitudes a bit similar at the moment.

On one hand everyone is saying that massive cuts will be needed to government spending in order to reduce the government budget deficit. On the other, all are avoiding giving any plans about them.  Also, while all of them are attacking bankers, there are few suggestions for regulations to prevent a credit crunch happening in the future.

In fact, if you were an alien who arrived on the planet just in time for last week's Budget, you would have looked at Alistair Darling's new plans for taxation and probably not have realised that government borrowing was such a problem.

But then when there is an election coming, us economists get forgotten about!