International events have pushed the price of gold up dramatically. It has touched $4,600 per ounce amid concerns regarding the deteriorating relationship between the White House and the Federal Reserve. Someone find Gordon Brown right now…
Guido has long been tracking the the billions lost by Brown’s decision to sell Britain’s gold reserves – figures are now through the roof. Gordon Brown sold 12,712,000 ounces of gold for revenue of $3,500,588,920. Last year that would net you around $38 billion as gold hit $3,000. Today it would generate $58,475,200,000…
Brown deprived the Exchequer of over £43 billion in revenue were it to have sold those reserves now. Guido can think of one black hole-prone Chancellor who would enjoy that scale of uplift right now…
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns told Times Radio she would have put a precondition on a China trip if she were PM:
“I would have put a precondition that I was not going to go if I was prime minister, unless Jimmy Lai was coming home with me. I would also put a precondition in the six months leading up to the visit that I wanted a reduction in hostile acts against our country. But that’s not what we saw. And actually, in contrast, what we saw was clearly the Chinese Communist Party did put a precondition, which was that the new embassy in London had to be signed off. So why is it okay for China to set preconditions and to make very clear red lines about what they require for a visit, but we go without having put any ourselves?”