Read the article for a change Dune:
In fact, the whole saga shows up our politicians at their worst. Listen to Chancellor George Osborne and you could easily believe government debt was invented by Gordon Brown. In fact, he made a pretty big reduction in the debt levels he inherited from his Conservative predecessor John Major - fixing the roof while the sun was shining, to coin a phrase - until he was knocked hopelessly off course by the financial crisis and the need to bail out banks.
There are many things to criticise Brown over but debt management before the crisis is not really one of them. It does rather underline the pettiness behind the refusal of Osborne and David Cameron to put Brown forward as a potential head of the International Monetary Fund. But that's another story.