My labrador, the UK's debt and Gordon Brown

My labrador, the UK's debt and Gordon Brown

My Labrador, Lucky, is unhappy! He keeps giving me funny looks. No, I am not going crazy, but I know him. This morning when we went out for our walk, for the first time in 6 years ( he is 6 years old), he didn’t pull at the lead, or take me for the walk, but instead, walked perfectly at my side. He didn’t even jump at the newspaper man, Jack,  as he usually does to get his daily biscuit from him.

Usually Lucky would run like a maniac towards Jack, leaping manically at him, usually taking him down, licking him profusely, tail wagging, until Jack gives him a biscuit. Releasing Jack from under my 35-kilo dog takes tact and a miracle, but it happens every day! No wonder he's known as “loony Lucky” in the neighbourhood.

But this morning, he didn’t even jump at Jack, he went into the “sit position” and waited patiently till Jack finished serving his customers. “ What’s up with Lucky?" asked Jack. "He's not jumping, I'm still standing ... that ain’t normal,” he said. “ Is he getting old?” I mumbled something quickly to Jack, tears swelling, and went home, not sure I could handle Lucky getting old. 

State assets

Then it dawned on me, when Lucky started giving me those funny looks. It started when we were watching the news, and Gordon Brown, UK’s prime minister, came on and said that to reduce the country’s gaping budget deficit he would have to sell state assets. And he is selling shares in government owned assets, such as the uranium enrichment business, Urenco, the channel tunnel rail link, and in Totes, the bookmakers. (What in god’s name is a country doing in a gambling business in the first place? That said, they did gamble with our futures with their light-touch regulation of the financial markets!)

Brown wants to raise $16 billion for the government coffers. The spiralling national debt is already at a shocking level, and it is estimated that it will hit £200 billion soon. Britain hasn’t lived within its means, and now Brown says that the asset sales would be used for investment as well as for paying down debt.  But, come on, in no way can they be used for both at the same time.

Moreover, selling government real estate can be a lucrative business when the price is right, but when the price is at rock-bottom, as it is now, it’s a disaster. But then, what do you expect from Gordon Brown, who sold the country’s gold reserves at a quarter of the price that it could have fetched now.

Now the sale of government assets could strike many as a painless way of tackling the deficit, but if it includes things like libraries, cemeteries and school playing fields, it can become a really messy business where the taxpayer will be hit the hardest.

How? Well, after all taxpayers pay for services in their local area, if government comes in and seizes assets from their local government - such as libraries - and flogs them off to reduce the country’s debt, the taxpayer will find the services they once enjoyed have suddenly ceased overnight! As ever, the devil is in the detail. And that made me think, did Lucky think that just because the UK government was ready to sell the things dearest and closest to their heart, such as libraries, then why not Labradors?

So I took Lucky out for a croissant at the local cafe and tried to explain to him that I would in no way ever let anyone sell him off! He was my state asset and no one was coming anywhere near him.  NEVER!

As we walked out of the restaurant, I could feel Lucky pulling at the lead again, and in no time, he was pulling me left , right, and every which way - and I had no idea when we would ever get back home. Lucky was back! 

We met the banker that lives across the road from us - Lucky growled at him. It was totally out of character for my people-loving labrador. I walked away with a smile on my face. After all, it was the bankers that got us into this mess in the first place. If we didn’t have to bail them out, our deficit wouldn’t look half as bad as it does.

Well done Lucky for growling, I thought. It is more than our own leaders have done to the bankers!