D for Depression
Last week, when the was first to highlight that the Prime Minister had used the D-word (as in Depression) during PMQs, the Downing Street spin machine was quick to shrug it off as a slip of the tongue. So how will it now cope with the claim of Education Secretary Ed Balls that we're facing the ?
It's worth quoting Mr Balls in full:
"The economy is going to define our politics in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years. These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape.
I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy.
We now are seeing the realities of globalisation, though at a speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before. The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years as it will turn out."
is already drawing our attention to the emphasis on "global" in these remarks. Even so, the implicit consequences for Britain are horrendous if he's right -- and in one regard quite explicit: he says we're heading for male unemployment of 70% in some areas.
I'm not clear what has caused to be so apocalyptic. If this blog has served any purpose in recent months I hope it's been to alert readers to the fact that the recession was going to be long and severe. Now, compared with Mr Balls, I find myself an optimist. Of course things are bad but a 15-year downturn? The worst in 100 years? There is no need, with the correct policy responses (some already in place), that it need be any of these things.
Some will regard Mr Balls as scaremongering. If so, why? I don't understand the politics of being quite so gloomy and David Cameron now has an open goal at PMQs tomorrow. The comments are all the more serious because they come from a man who was effectively Gordon Brown's Deputy Chancellor for over a decade.
Only weeks ago the government was boasting that we were best placed to get through this ; now it's going to be the worst for 100 years. Either the government is getting its messages in a twist or it knows something we don't.
We'll be looking at the import of the remarks but we'll also cheer you up because it's Hang a Banker Day! Well, not really. But four men who presided over the spectacular rise and fall of are in front of the Treasury Select Committee this morning. 
Much of the attention will fall on , the former Chief Executive of and architect of the bank's ruinous takeover of the Dutch bank, .
The build-up to this committee has been huge - it's meant to be the "most vicious grilling ever" said one paper at the weekend. MPs will be demanding an apology. The bankers have hired media gurus to help them.
We'll have the latest coverage of the select committee and hopefully - if it finishes in time - be talking to the committee chair, , a Daily Politics regular.
We'll have the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and former banker, and best-selling author, .
Our Guest of the Day is Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of and architect of Obama's internet campaign in the States.
We'll be looking at the state of internet campaigning here. And as for his bailout plan over the pond, we'll be looking at the American economy with Charlie Woolf.
All that at midday on the on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ2 -- and afterwards on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer.
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