Guido wishes he had bought his daughters more gold each when they were born. Still with gold at $1030 an ounce, tripling in three years is satisfactory. Thanks Gordon for depressing the price.

When Brown and Darling try to present themselves as the safe pairs of hands in this coming time of economic crisis, remember that Brown was the financial whizz who sold Britain’s gold reserves at the historic low for dollars. Now as the dollar goes into freefall the total loss from that idiotic decision (he even told the market to get short before he sold off the reserves) will dwarf the few billion lost by the Bank of England on White Wednesday. Brown’s judgement is neither good or timely.

We have yet to have the final reckoning for Northern Rock, where some estimate that over 20% of the loans are to mortgagees with negative equity. The Fed arranged the sale of Bear Stearns in comparable circumstances over this weekend. It took dithering Brown months to make the wrong decision on Northern Rock. Remember how Lloyds TSB was interested in buying Northern Rock in much the same way Morgan Chase has just bought Bear Stearns?

The Tory benches are full of people who have worked in financial markets, Letwin, Redwood, even Andrew Mitchell and many more understand the markets far more than the student union activist turned TV producer cum PM and the dull barrister ever will. Faced with the worst financial crisis since the seventies what did they do? Implement a pre-emptive growth package in the budget? No, they threatened to tax plastic bags and put up car duties and taxes for those on lower incomes. Pathetic.

UPDATE : The LibDem benches, it has been pointed out in the comments, also have their fair share of brains acquainted with financial markets – Cable and Laws to name two. The Labour benches are devoid of experience.