The hostilities in the Labour Party are over, but now to avert a great depression

During the summer, as Labour remained fixed at more than 20 points behind the Conservatives in the opinion polls and as the plot to oust Gordon Brown gathered momentum, it was said that he could be saved only by a bomb, a terrorist outrage so extreme that it would force the Labour Party and the nation to unite behind its beleaguered Prime Minister. Well, Mr Brown has his bomb in the form of the worst economic crisis in living memory, and its aftershocks will be felt long into the future as a fundamental realignment of the relationship between state and markets takes place against the backdrop of a worldwide slump. How is Labour responding to the crisis? It has to be said that good sense is at last breaking out in the party. On Monday, even before the government was compelled by events to part-nationalise the banking system... [read full story]