Relations between London and Berlin were strained after Peer Steinbruck, Germany’s finance minister, accused Gordon Brown of ‘crass Keynesianism’. And in two words, Steinbruck managed to say what many of us “have been struggling to ever since the government announced a £20bn VAT giveaway”, says Jeremy Warner in The Independent. “Tossing around billions” after years of preaching fiscal rectitude is not only a “breathtaking” U-turn, says Steinbruck, but will raise national debt to a level that “will take a whole generation to work off”.
Gordon Brown’s attempts to shrug off the remarks as “internal German politics” didn’t hold much water either, says David Wooding in The Sun. Steinbruck’s opposite political number, Steffen Kampeter, commented “the tremendous amount of debt being offered by Britain shows a complete failure of Labour policy”. No wonder Steinbruck feels “a little tetchy”, says Harry de Quetteville in The Daily Telegraph. “Like a responsible child, he has been saving up for the one present he really wants: a balanced budget.” Then Brown “got out his hammer and began smashing up Herr Steinbruck’s beloved piggy-bank”. Steinbruck sees this as an attempt to rescue Europe, with Germany picking up the bill.
Germany may not want to spend its money, but why should it “hitch a free ride”? asks Edmund Conway, also in The Daily Telegraph. Germany is the world’s biggest exporter and it will benefit when other European countries borrow cash and stimulate their economies. Brown may not have structured his rescue package that well, but a “Keynesian slug of borrowing” is exactly what is needed. Steinbruck is “behaving not merely crassly, but dangerously”.
Nonetheless, Germany has shown that the Conservatives are far from isolated when criticising Brown’s recent profligacy.