Great Clunking Idiot

Gordon Brown talked a good game at PMQs today, all about how semi-nationalising our banking system was going to force banks to start lending again. This was great for small businesses, he assured us.
One of the great problems with people like Gordon is that they have absolutely no idea about how business works - probably because few of them have ever run one.
To most politicians and office-based civil servants (as opposed to soldiers, cops, firemen, nurses, binmen and all the other public employees who actually do something worthwhile), money is just something that comes out of a never-ending tap. They create nothing of value, bring in no earnings to the country and retire on bulletproof, State-guaranteed pensions, irrespective of their performance.
Blissfully unaware of any link between what you do and what you earn, they don't understand what small business really wants.
Yes, the economy needs business to be able to borrow from banks, but it's not a panacea. Monday Books - a very small business indeed - has never borrowed a penny and has no intention of so doing.
Businesses run on tight fiscal lines - the sort of lines governments just don't seem to understand - would really like the Great Clunking Bore to reverse his recent corporation tax grab. If he made it easier to hire and fire people, that would be another step in the right direction. Paternity and maternity leave, employment rights and minimum wages are all very well, but if they stop people from taking on staff in the first place, because they can't be arsed with all the red tape, what good are they really?
By the way, on the subject of this part nationalisation, and the 'Death of Capitalism', where does Gordon think the tax revenues he's using to prop up the banks come from? It's certainly not our gold reserves, is it?

In other news, Copperfield was on Radio 4's Law In Action yesterday, and Bloggs and Gadget were on the same station's Media Show today.
The latter people had agreed to mention the blogs (they wouldn't mention the books), but then didn't (though there is a click-through from the Media Show's online homepage). This has happened before with the BBC. We used to get annoyed about this, but now we kind of expect it.