A few weeks ago, I was very sad to see the Belgians get a government. Things had been doing rather nicely, as is their wont. Without some massive external pressure (war, famine, pestilence or heaven forbid, a Spice Girls tour) tomorrow will turn out much the same as today.

The Belgians did not suffer from not having a government for six months; they lived their lives without much being different. The only people who suffered were the politicians (who didn’t get to meddle) and upper ranking civil servants (who didn’t get to enable the meddling). The country meandered through as if nothing was wrong. Because nothing was, in point of fact, wrong.

Imagine, then, how horrified I was to read that Gordon Brown is going to concentrate all his (admittedly rather large) intellect to keeping the economy on track.

Now, I firmly believe that Brown is a smart man. But in may ways he’s also incredibly stupid. And on the stupid side of the balance sheet, he believes that more government attention is a good thing. When anyone with eyes to see will look at anything that’s been a primary focus of government hasn’t improved.

• Terrorism. Apparently still there, if the horror stories are to be believed.
• Violent crime. Despite making it illegal, and holding literally hundreds of workshops, it still happens. And is apparently getting worse, depending on who you ask.
• Education, education, education. And yet the country just forgot how to read…
• The NHS. Plz to supply your own life-support machine related humour here.
• Climate Change. Oh wait, that one can’t improve, in the same way the the Department of the Tooth Fairy isn’t going to improve any time soon…

On the plus side, when Brown is busy running the economy into the ground just by looking studiously at it, he’ll be neglecting everything else. So expect massive improvements in the state of everything that isn’t the economy…