Quote of the day

"The first financial crisis of the global age has now laid bare the weaknesses of unbridled free markets ... And what is happening around the world is raising quite fundamental questions for the new global age about the right relationships between markets and governments."

Gordon Brown, writing in yesterday's Daily Torygraph.

According to today's Independent, "Mr Brown's comments are likely to be challenged by the Conservatives, who say the Government might use the crisis to increase state control over private enterprise". Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Tories the ones who guffawed at Brown's call for an end to the "age of irresponsibility", arguing it was an age over which he himself presided as Chancellor and which he did little or nothing to prevent? So, do they want state intervention to regulate those "unbridled free markets", or don't they?

As lucid and comprehensive as the Independent's coverage of what we're duty-bound to refer to as the "current economic climate" was, it was rather bemusing to find that the first proper news item, on page 3, was about the impact of the credit crunch on the world of fine art dealing. Apparently a portrait of Francis Bacon painted by Lucien Freud, valued at £7m and due to go up for auction at Christie's today, was being "seen as the canary in the coalmine that could tell everyone the market is about to blow". Seriously, at a time when pension funds are dwindling, when families are struggling to put food on the table, when people are losing their jobs and their homes, who gives a flying fuck about whether or not Roman Abramovich is prepared to stump up the cash for another piece of trophy art?

What's more, the meaty analysis of the "current economic climate" was deemed less important than a two page feature on the growing popularity among women of cosmetic surgery for the feet...