Gordon Brown’s problem is he’s been in Downing Street for the last 10 years.

The Chancellor wants to persuade us that when he moves from 11, Downing Street into Number 10 it will mark a major shift in Government policy. Yet at the same time, he’s keen to claim credit for anything that’s gone right in the last decade. 

It’s a difficult argument to make. Especially as Brown has been one of Britain’s most powerful ever Chancellors.

Who was responsible for raiding pension funds, and a decision to put the state pension up by just 75p one year?

Who introduced a tax credit system so fiendishly complicated, that billions are wasted on bureaucracy and overpayments?

Who backed Tony Blair on policies like the Iraq War, student tuition fees and council tax?

Gordon can’t escape responsibility for policies that have brought waste and war.

Of course, it is fair to say that under Chancellor Brown Britain has enjoyed much greater stability than in the past. The “boom and bust” years of Conservative economic mismanagement, which brought two disastrous recessions, with sky high mortgage rates and mass unemployment, haven’t been repeated - so far.

So what’s been the foundation of the relatively good economy Britain has enjoyed in the last 10 years? It’s been the independent Bank of England.

Yet the Chancellor gave our central bank control of interest rates back in 1997, after arguing against that policy in the 1997 election!

For an independent central bank was the Liberal Democrats’ economic policy. He’s never even said “thank you”.