It's never fault, but they deserve all the credit?

It never ceases to amaze me the way politicians brazenly seek to claim credit when things go well and then never except blame when things go awry.

New Labour has had a good run in office largely as a result of their "sound economics" which were always a myth - bolstered quite happily by the left-wing media - and few people while things were going well bothered to challenge this myth. The truth is that Labour's period in office coincided with a remarkably settled global economic period which itself was largely down to two things - a stable US economy over the last 10 years and the economic revival of China since the communist government embraced the capitalist economic model.

Our economic prosperity over the last 10 years was largely due to those two things and had little to do with the media favourites - the EU and Tony Blair - but Labour, being in office during this time, were the beneficiaries of this settled period and were happy to claim the credit for it - none more so than our then Chancellor and now PM, Gordon Brown.

Of course, the reality of the Brown years in the Treasury was not sound economics but the usual tax and spend Labour principles of old. Rather than using this period of economic stability to boost Britain's industry, reform welfare (the best time to reform a welfare system is during a boom - not at the start of a bust), get the lazy and indolent off their incapacity benefit and into work and cut taxation.

Labour and Gordon Brown didn't. Like a bunch of kids let loose with their parents credit card they frittered away the money on wasteful projects and bloating the already over-inflated public sector. They increased taxation, mostly by stealth, and failed to consider the possibility that there could ever be a time when the gravy train would stop.

In simple terms, the economy was mismanaged from the very start - Brown was the man in charge, but all of the senior Labour MP's were culpable. So it infuriates me now to hear those same people - in this case the utterly incompetent Harriet Harman (how on earth did this pathetic woman ever rise to such a senior level?) - bleating on about how the terrible situation is not their fault, but down to the economy.

"I'm saying very clearly that this is an economic problem. I don't think for one moment we would have lost that by-election in Glasgow had it not been for the cost of living. Our response is to focus on those concerns."

I'm saying very clearly that the state of the economy is your fault, Harriet. You were happy to take the credit when it was apparently going well, now you take the blame for it going bad.