Skipper

It's hard to criticize Gordon Brown when one has no alternative to offer, so I was gratified to find two distinguiished columnists coming up with one apiece.

Simon Jenkins recently suggested that better than merely loosing those 12 odd billions into the economy and hope that it will ast as a stimulus to end the recession as Keynes says it should:

Get people to spend by giving them money, and just stop them saving it. Give them non-cashable vouchers for domestic goods and services that expire in three months. Drive them to the high streets, supermarkets, restaurants, entertainments, garages, anything that is not saving and has an employment multiplier effect. Only firms should be able to bank the vouchers. Demand must feed straight into business revenue, because revenue is collateral for credit. Without revenue, boosting credit is pointless.

Maybe this idea is deceptively simple but I'd like to know why; it has already been suggested by German Social Democrats.Wemust reflect that it took the Second World War and FDR's New Deal for Keynesian ideas to win favour. The second idea comes from Andrew Rawnsley yesterday when he suggested Brown shouldn't throw money at the banks but do an FDR and invest in our decaying infra-structure.

If the government is going to spend like there is no tomorrow, better to use the money building things that might be useful when tomorrow comes. Better to invest in Britain. That way, when we do eventually emerge the other side of recession, we will be in a fitter place to exploit a resumption of growth. The case is even more compelling because this is a country crying out for serious investment to improve its creaking infrastructure.

It's a strange thing about innovative ideas; some people are opposed to them by instinct as if they have some toxic quality or because they didn't think of them personally. Of the two I think the latter is the most persuasive and also much needed as anyone trapped in a motorway jam or waiting for a train knows. Chances of being implemented? At the moment, more's the pity, I'd say nil.