Is another government acievement inter- planetary travel. Must be, as SK is clearly living on a different one!

Ian, Menorca, Spain

The penny has dropped! Thanks to Gordon Brown's extortionate stamp duty tax on first time buyers all these years the market has been encouraged to loan these poor unfortunate young people 125% of a houses value. Unjust, hypocritical and deeply worrying for our children as they struggle with this unfair system and for the rest of us as the rug is pulled from under the banking system. This instability is self inflicted poor macro management based on a tax and spend that is now unravelling after cunning concealment and much self praise and arrogance..

Pudsey, London, UK

Tony Blair has stood in the way of the former Chancellor way and has I think coloured the waters for him which would explain the current circumstances. Unfortunately for Gordon Brown he has not got the coat tails of a spin doctor to hide behind. And selling off the gold reserves may also prove to be a fatal error with a depression on the way.

Marie-Claire Oliver, Bath, United Kingdom

"Miserable" Donne? Rubbish - the poem celebrates our shared humanity and mortality, but miserable it is not. Brown is though

Jeremy Poynton, Frome, England

The Emperor s clothes Press is missing an obvious point. It has been the performance of the British economy that has made Gordon Brown s reputation, for reasons that cannot be divulged for fear of embarrassing the Emperor s subjects, not vice versa. And it is that particular condition which has caused, or resulted in, the increasing centralisation of the polity and the rise of Treasury control. This isn t going to change when Gordon Brown eventually leaves, but to disguise this point, and in the interest of facilitating the transition, he is conveniently being blamed for all the associated aggro this process has caused. Thus he is still implicitly the responsible party by the way his relationship with Alastair Darling has been represented.
By attaching all these other incidences, such as Northern Rock, to his debit, the environment on his departure can be portrayed in an improved light. But in fact that will disguise the point that it will be largely unchanged, and the underlying trends exhibited in recent years will continue whoever succeeds Brown.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Wish I knew how sk sussex comes to his/her opinion.

Try heating, petrol, food, water, mortgages, education, todays university dropouts, immigration, benefit swindlers, where does it stop.

Also sk, try living on a pension, or a meagre one, then you will know the difference.

brenda norwood, York,

Don't think I would write off Brown and Darlings adventures in banking as an aside, but certainly a symptom of Gordons pigheadedness. Watching our spineless, unelected leader always puts me in mind of a weak swimmer with a puncture in their rubber ring! The more he thrashes about, the faster he sinks! Brown and his corruption riddled party are now doing nothing more than keeping their collective head above water. It's fascinating fun watching from the sidelines, trying to judge when they will slip under the surface, never to return.......

craig pond, stoke-on-trent, England

Settle down folks. SK doesn't believe it any more than you do. He only said that to see how many would bite.

Letahead, Troon,

sk, do we actually live in the same country?

From where I am standing things have got so much worse. As a single, well educated, employed 30 something still only able to essentially live a student life style i.e. in shared housing, I really do wonder where you people come from. Borrowing is totally out of control and the pyramid system called the housing market will have to collapse or you will lose a generation overseas.

Never mid all the other tinkering in different depts. This article is a breath of fresh air!

spot on, Cambridge,

Brown set up the regulatory system that were warn numerous
times about the sub-prime market. And so Brown should now go: because he is has proved- quite a few times; he is not fit for purpose.
We now have a banking system: that they take the profits; the
taxpayers pickup the losses.

A Walton, Leicester, England

BINGO!

'In the meantime, the pieces of Northern Rock litter No 10. Move away from Westminster and hear what people think: that these are Mr Brown's chickens coming home to roost, a Chancellor and now Prime Minister who floated a public spending boom off the back of a greedy financial sector betting in increasingly convoluted structures not understood by politicians on rising house prices artificially inflated by foreign billionaires, the whole underpinned by ordinary people unprotected by a weak regulatory system put in place by the same man now intent upon using our money to prop up votes in his northern heartlands. Or something like that. Welcome to Britain, 2008: caustic, cynical, furious, and agog at the impotence of politicians in the face of the amoral, international super-rich.'

Try explaining this to Hazel Blears. Good luck.

joe, Berwickshire, Scotland

True, things have improved as 'sk of East Sussex' states. But at what cost? The Government is living on 'tick' like a drunkard. Thouands of Families are wracked by personal and mortgage debt - but that is/was their choice. Public spending policy is in array as Millions, if not Billions of Taxpayers money has been wasted on dubious IT and other projects. The obsession for 'PFI' has been a disaster in many cases. The Private Companies involved in 'PFI' projects are 'Laffing All the Way to Their Banks'. Corporate Lawyers and Accountants have tied this 'Prudence' Government into legal knots and contracts for years to come -- They, the Private Contractors will make Billions of Pounds, and all NU Labour 'Pillock-ticians' can muttle is "Value for Money, Value For Money" like so many demented Parrots!

Not so 'Prudence' now are we Mr Mc Has-Bean? Will we see the undedifying picture of Pa Broon going cap-in-hand to the IMF to raise 'Junk Bonds' to pay for spendrift ways. "Squander-Bugs"

B Clarke, Chelmsford, Essex UK

Bring back Ken Clarke before it is too late- he could have even defeated Blair. This Brown led NuLabour lot are useless. There is no talent there and very little left in the Tory party.Emigrate

Given up with UK, Scarborough, England

How is the Rock still in trouble after managing to still borrow the money that it needed and failed to borrow from the American sub prime market ? it all goes to show that even if the Rock had managed to get the money from the sub prime market that it would not of helped it out and that the Rock was still going bust regardless because it did manage to get the money it needed, only from the bank of England instead, so what was the real reason for it`s present day troubles as it now cannot be blamed on the American sub prime market ?

paddy conroy, newcastle upon tyne, england

sk.... yer avin a laarf - A very good piece of satire!!

pt, and jem have answered some of your misguided points, but there are many more.

Discrimination?; -failing to control massive immigration has produced far more racial discrimination. They have encouraged new discriminations too - the obese and smokers, to name but two!

medicine?; - postcode lottery provision?

Transparency?;- well, they got found out, if that's what you mean! or do you mean that 'spin' is becoming more subtle and effective?

Affluent?;- my net wealth, and that of many others have been gradually reduced over the last 10 years by stealth taxes etc.
How many of those home owners are going to lose them due to Gordon's economic incompetence.

Protection at work? - or protection from the need to work?

It's not just the press who attribute all the downsides to the Govt. - Anyone who has an ounce of common sense agrees with much of what the press highlight.

This article is spot-on!

winstonian, Darlington,

Gordon Brown is deaf to everyone and everything, he will never hear the bell already tolling at this, the beginning of his ill-fated premiership. Gordon Brown awake, it tolls for thee - worst Prime Minister ever!

Dave, York, England

Its not everyday that the government sponsors a premier league football club -I wonder if Northern Rock will continue to sponsor Newcastle Utd FC.

If so how could the govt square subsidising premiership footballers exorbitent wages whilst pensionners are having to choose between food or heat and sell their homes to afford care.

Perhaps Gordon Brown will now be able to put some meat behind his proclamation of 'British jobs for British workers' and get rid of Newcastles non British players.

Rob, London,

re sk, East Suusex ; because much of what afflicts this country is the fault of this Government. for they have embarked on permanent change in the NHS which has left it dysfunctional, with their new plan to change the one area of the NHS which works, the Primary care arrangement. They have pushed through Parliament a never ending stream of Home Office bills which has left that department unfit for purpose. They have swamped this country with immigrants overloading the infrastructure and services . And on Financial matters Brown has spent, taxed and spent, and borrowed, taxed and spent, and built an economy built on debt, both public and private, underwritten by a bubble housing market, which places the Northern Rock wreck at Gordon Browns door, not only in the structural economic situation which has led us to this point , but also in the tri-partite arrangement he put in place but an arrangement which failed.

Iain, Andover , Hants

sk, East Sussex,

More people dont own their own homes, more people than ever rent them from the bank for more than they have ever done before.
How are we more affluent when we owe £1trillion on credit cards?

Dominic, Manchester, UK

sk - precisely how deep is your head in the sand?

Fuel prices at an all time high, the property market completely out of control, the highest taxation in Europe, our armed forces diminished and under budgeted, our personal information constantly getting 'mislaid' and a Home Secretary who says she wouldn't want to walk the streets at night alone - damn right there is still a lot to do and this Administration really has a great deal to answer over its dangerous ineptitude over the last 10 years.

PT, Rickmansworth, United Kingdom

Not much good has come out of the NR fiasco - but at least, yet again, it has shown how immature Cameron and Osborne are. 'Young and stupid' indeed. Their reaction to the nationalisation - prancing, foot-stamping and screeching like adolescents - was immensely damaging to them and to the Tory Party. The grown-up Conservatives might like to make a note of this episode for when the leadersip is next discussed.

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

ah, sk.... that's so sweet. personally, I think alice should have expanded her second to last paragraph into a whole article. maybe two. real problems have been caused by brown as chancellor. prudent according to one g. brown. and that's without mentioning the rest of the spin, sleaze, waste, lies, etc. I'm guessing you must be one of the turkeys.

jem, london, uk

Alice,

How well written " Certainly an awful lot of things have come crashing home to land on Mr Brown's beach this week "

Over the years the New Labour Spin Factory have been able to hand out piecemeal explanations and excuses to the varying degrees of fallout from their questionable policies, mandates and sleaze however they're not quite so prepared for the volumous assault on the very fabric of their being that is happening right now,

If this were a time to 'Bury Bad News' then the burial mound would be akin to Everest where the tip of Big Ben would be far from view!

Please though, help me dispell the myth, that up here the North is a Labour Heartland.

We should have listened to Browns critics, of his single minded, unyielding autocratic style that would not be good for governement. But there you have it, how do we now expect those too weak to challenge him when it mattered to do so now.

Those who are strong enough however will show him at the next election!

Shaun, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear

This country has improved enormously over the last 10 years. We are more affluent, more own their own homes, we are more healthy (we are all living much longer despite the dire warnings of obesity), the environment is much improved, medicine has lept forward, we are protected at work and in society against discrimination and, yes we do have some extremely wealthy people in our society - so what. There is still a lot to do, but why does the Press attribute all the downsides to the Government which is more transparent than it has every been.

sk, East Sussex,

Bravo Alice, all is forgiven.

colbeck, jersey,