Interest rates expected to rise

The monthly meeting of the Bank of England heads is upon us, and yet again home owners everywhere, especially new ones, will on tenterhooks this lunchtime awaiting their decision.

It is expected that the Bank of England will increase interest rates to 5%, a five year high, with a further increase expected in January. But more importantly it means that the interest rate will only be 1% lower than when Gordon Brown took over as Chancellor.

So what benefit has Gordon Brown been then, as it appears that we are no better off after nearly ten years. The problem is that when you start looking a little deeper, you start to worry a bit more about Gordon's whole economic policy.

The interest rates are used by the Bank of England to control inflation. Which is currently above the Chancellor's target. But this is calculated on a "basket of goods", but over the years we have constantly heard that the RPI, CPI, or whatever abbreviations that they are using now, is "slighty different due to a new way of calculating it". A spin line that is aways used when crime figures go up.

However, in reality the cost of living far out-strips the governments view of the way it has increased. What is not included in the "cost of living - basket of goods" is gas and electricity prices, or tax increases. According to an item on Sky News this morning, the cost of living has increased, in real terms, by nearly 20%. Of, course we all know that a figure like that would bring down a government, so it's no wonder that they are always changing the way things are recorded.

But this certainly won't help homeowners across the country, who have been saddled with so much debt because of his unwillingness to deal with house price increases, as their already stretched budgets will be pushed to the limit. The number of repossions, and bankruptcy declarations, are already increasing, so how much damage would a further interest rate increase do.

The fact is that we are all worse off under Gordon Brown. So when Blair stated who would you rather have in charge, and started to talk about Gordon's record as Chancellor, and I read above, it's an easy choice. Anyone But Gordon.