I say Oregon needs to succeed from the union. We pay way more in Federal taxes than we will ever see. It is just not fair. They are squandering our hard earned money on what? what I say?

Noella Fay, Eugene, Oregon

Based on his/her/its unorthodox orthography and wayward punctuation, Wini would appear to be the product of the wonderful English education system. Rock on NuLabor.

billy barnett, Hong Kong,

Daniel, do you ever have a go at the tories? Don't pretend you think Cameron is a good leader. You know as well as anybody that the Tories would be little better.

James Rogers, Birmngham,

The political bias of the TimesOnLine is not only contemptable and disgusting, it is also very boring reading. That is why it's readership is so astonishingly low.

Smear, slander, and characture defamation of the Labour party. Who wants to read that ?

Wini, England,

From the moment Labour came to power 10 years ago I said that socialism does not work, it did not work in 1979 and it isn't working now. They have the same beliefs and ideology and it is only a matter of time before it implodes again. The only difference this time is that they managed to conceal it for so long.

Andy, Chesterfield, England

You forgot one, David:
Another government IT project to consolidate disparate data into a single database bombs out to the tune of umpteen billion pounds. The data itself becomes accessible to ten-year-olds with mobile phones.

Ross, Bristol,

"The electorate may be overfed, overprovided, and overly inebriated" write one commentator...
As well they might be since Brown's electors are mostly living off my tax bill because they couldn't (be bothered to) get one of the half-million or so jobs that were filled in about five minutes flat by East European immigrants.

KR, Stockport,

Jayand Jeremy.
1. I am not aware that I said anything to indicate that Scotland was not a part of Britain? I may have written from Goa but having lived in London for 42 years of my life until recently, I believe your observations are off the mark.
2.Estate values are inflated and need to come down. But do not blame Brown. Blame your fellow Englishmen who look upon house purchase as an investment and not as an opportunity to buy a permanent home and the insatiable greed
of your fellow citizens liberally fed by overpaid estate agents. Add to that the english attitude to debt and you have your answer.
3. Pensions have lost tax exemptions.As a 70 years old divorced pensioner who had to surrender half his pension it hurts perhaps more than you realise but I am prepared to make the sacrifice for the benefit of what has been my adopted home.
4.Some PFI contracts have not done well. What about the scandals in the city and unjustified bonuses in the corporate world? Happens everywhere!

LAKSHMAN PARDHANANI, Goa, India

I am trying to remember the words of a song I think it is something like "mendacity..thats my by-word"..or have I got that wrong as well?
Spin..twist....backtrack..mendacity and lies..mislead..we sure have been..but what is worse is that we have deserved it.We have stood by and watched since the mid/late 90s..and the press has published many lies and mis-truths when leading columnists should have known better.Labour I may be...but a little old fashionedly I am also a "patriot"..I will not stand by at the next elections..although I feel a little wary about the "other lot"

david, Barnsley, s.yorks

And what about the referendum? Brown has still to face the holwing mobs who think a manifesto promise is a promise.
(fools that they may be)

John Bell, Nottinghm,

Daniel Finklestein is probably right, however we, the electorate will suffer as a result of this government's utter incompetence. They have lost their credibility, and therefore will not be believed, on any measure, spin or no spin. To think it all started with the calling of an election that never was!
To hear Geoff Hoon on the Today programme talking about "lessons to be learned" and yet another"Review."Lessons to be learned",by whom and when? and there are more Reviews on going than the late C.B. Cochrane ever produced. They are so pathetic, they still lay various problems at the feet of the last government, do they mean the Blair or Major administrations? Come back Tony, all is forgiven, and bring John with you.

M. Fishman, London, UK

You've forgot to mention about how Gordon Brown is a signature of the Scottish Claim Of Right. For any Englishmen and Women who are unaware of this, it states that those signing are commited to making the interest of Scotland paramount in everything they do. This might explain why Scotland gets preferential funding, and England is denied their own parlaiment. I sense that it is only a matter of time before the papers will pick up on Gordon Brown's signature to this Claim and question whether he is treating the other nations in the UK (particularly England) fairly. You can find out more about the Gordon Brown's Scottish Claim of Right here:
http://thecep.org.uk/news/?p=294

or here:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=34373&SESSION=891

or here:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Brown-blasted-for-39Scotland-first39.3494715.jp

brian, London, , England

In the 2005 election the slogan was Vote Blair Get Brown and it's not often an election pledge actually happens. What a disaster the man is!
The tide has turned for New Labour and not a moment too soon - perhaps we can now speculate whether Gordon Brown tucks his shirt into his underpants or whether he has been having an affair with Hazel Blears John Major-style!

Dave, slough,

The A14 that becomes a car park when it snows will grind to a halt as will the M25 near Heathrow due to neglect. There will be an air disaster due to cost cutting caused by overtaxing. Poverty in retirement for many will produce negative publicity for the overpaid over pensioned Brown. Several ministers reaching the end of their tenure will write books accusing Brown of policy plagiarism and of preferring regulating things to coming up with anything visionary. Stealth taxes will become known as Brown taxes. Green field sites used for new housing development will become knows as Brownfield sites. Brownfield sites will become known as Tescos reserve sites. Scotland will become Independent and Brown will be lost for words (and voters). Casino operators will sue the government for wasting their time and money. Brown will have to admit he now has to ask the head of Europe, Tony Blair, before he can give taxpayers money away to anyone he wishes to endear himself to. ........

Richard, Huntingdon, Cambs

Lakshman Pardhanani, either you have no idea of Brown's history as a plundering and debt-ridden Chancellor or you are a hard-core (and hence deluded) labour activist who could not live through the costly times (and zero disposable income) of Brown governance and has elected to convert the ££s into a currency which will go further, to cover living expenses, than the pound. In either case, your comments are at best misguided.
Finkelstein, I am surprised you completely overlooked the disaster that is awaiting public debt when economy slows down and Brown will be forced to raise taxes. He simply does not have any other option.
You also forgot spiralling fuel price until end of next year and joined-up series of strikes (along with other public sector workers) that will shake the country to the core. We may see 1970s replayed.

Prabhat, UK,

PM Brown's tenure is beginning to remind me of the always fateful promotion of an assistant manager to manager of a football club. Sammy Lee, Chris Hutchings, PM Brown. All doomed from the start.

Andrew Barber, Norwich, UK

Well-written Daniel, but when all comes to pass it will be worse, nobody could have predicted the current mess. New labour is imploding; being cynical is there a whiff of pay back time towards comrade Brown by certain disgruntled ex power players. Why are we suddenly hearing about false donations?

Michael, Sheffield,

You know how people have a sort of sixth sense - that something is going to happen? Well I think we all now that Brown is one of life's losers, and although we don't know quite what will bring him down, we know he will fall big-time.

In this situation, it is vital that he rushes through Parliament his promise that only Parliament will be able to commit the country to war.

MarkS, Leeds,

What about a good, old-fashioned sex scandal to keep the redtops happy?

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Perhaps Lakshman Pardhanani is the Hidustani for David Martin?

David Cotterell, Cheltenham, UK

I have only one thing to say to the people of Britain: we need to get rid of this government.
And yes, I'M just trying to be helpful.

Joe, Kent, UK

We've had pestilence, war, floods - no famine as yet but this does look increasing like the end of days for this shambles.

Makes you realise Tony was probably pretty good if he managed to keep this lot in some sort of order. Never thought I'd think that.

Benjamin , Gloucester,

I think you forgot "overtaxed" Mr Pardhanani. We know on which side our bread is buttered as we paid for it. Our prudent chanceller has sold cut price gold, raided pensions, thrown money at disastrous tax credit and child support schemes and overpaid doctors and consultants for less work. Sorry we don't even believe its butter.

R Bowden, London,

You left off the following headline from your the list of banana skins waiting for Brown:

"29 November 2008. Investigation takes place into last year's Virgin takeover of Northern Rock. Were the share-holders stitched up to get Brown off the hook? If this proves to be the case, then the tax-payers will have to pay billions in compensation."

Adrian Gilbert, Tonbridge,

I enjoyed every paragraph of your column. May I add a few items myself, perhaps other contributors could add even more - why not ?
After April 2008 many 'Buy to Let' investors start dumping their properties on an already declining housing market so that they can take advantage of the reduced 18% capital gains tax. Later on in the summer Gordo's brave efforts to free more land for house building bears fruit. He has been bribing Local Authorities to identify and release more land and they have provided their constituents with questionaires. Suprisingly enough this has all worked beautifully. There are now a million more house building plots. This unfortunately upsets house prices even more. As prices plunge amongst a scenario of greater supply, distressed sellers and tightening lending it takes on a life of it's own. Potential buyers sit tight, new buyers experience negative equity and then Virgin rakes in it's super bonus from the rescue of Northern Rock.
Then Election Time !

Diddly Do, liverpool,

Hi,
When the colure of Brown turns to black husten we have a problem.
Regards Dr. Terence Hale Zandvoort

Terence Hale, Zandvoort, Holland

Lakshman - sterling service in the form of the following

1. Selling 1/3rd of our gold reserves, having publicly announced he was going to do so, so that the reserves were sold at rock bottom price. Gold now over X3 the sale price

2. Theft from the nations personal pension pot by taxing it at source. Hit on our pockets now, according to a leading City Actuary, £150 BILLION and rising

3. PFI. Cost to the taxpayer over the next 20 years, £190 billion. Current PFI contracts, esp in the NHS, under performing badly.

4. A national and personal economic boom built on an unsustainable overvaluation of housing. All about to come toppling down. IE. A boom built on debt, national and private. PBR for the year to come likely to hit £40 billion. Who will pay for that? The taxpayer.

& lots more - tax credits, Customs/IRS merger, the diastroous tripartite financial regulation system which gave us the Northern Rock fiasco.

Brown's only miracle is that people think him competent!

That enough?

Jeremy Poynton, Fromeville, 51st State

Didn't know Mr Brown had relatives in Goa.

David Hardy, Zürich,

I'm assuming that Mr Pardhanani is being ironic...No...but then I guess it's easy to be fooled by inadequacy when one is sitting several thousand miles away from the reality of life in Britain today...oh, and by the way, Scotland has been part of Britain for several hundred years...stop watching appalling Mel Gibson films to learn about the history of the UK.

And you might have the decency to get Mr Finkelsteins' name right too.

Jay, London,

I can't stop laughing. Sour, dour Mr. Brown must be about to have fit's. He waited 10 years for that cheery little fella to get out of No. 10 and the whole thing is slipping through his clunking fists like slime in a pig pen.

Britain can hope that this Scottish Prime Minister will finally decide to do the right thing for the people of Britain and call an election by summer. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Doing right by your country isn't a high priority these days among unelected politicians.

Joshua, Buckeye, Az/USA

Should have took the chance of an election when they had a chance of winning it.

Peter Day, Doncaster, UK/ Yorkshire

Looks more like a filkinstein wish list than a prediction of likely happenings based upon past performance.
Brown has rendered sterling service to his ungrateful critics for 10 years despite humiliations and disdain heaped upon him while he was providing that service. Brown is an intellectual giant and the minnows who seek his downfall will not win anymore than they did over the past 10 years. His main crime is that he is not an Englishman and the English cannot stomach this.
The electorate may be overfed, overprovided, and overly inebriated. But they are cute enough to know which side their bread is buttered. The recent aberration will soon be resolved and Brown will come through, at least I hope so, for the sake of Britain.

LAKSHMAN PARDHANANI, Goa, India

...by which time (the election, that is), it's a certainty that there will have been a few more "clerical errors" by junior civil servants, "leaked emails", oodles of breaches of data privacy, a few rolling heads, a few more refusals to resign, hopefully, a few more people who are mostly just "trying to be helpful", and, with some amazing luck, a little more management-speak to be added to the national lexicon.

Just the right tone and spot on. Can't wait for regular updates.

Sue, San Antonio, USA Texas

A particularly incisive view of a morally and ethically bancrupt government expecting to retain power for personal betterment at the expense of what it sees as a gullible elctorate. i do so hope they are wrong!

Paul, Coventry,

Seems about right.

Total Recall, Wandsworth,

Terrific first paragraph, may you write for a long time

Alex Santos, SPARTANBURG, USA