Brown Finger

In uncertain times, investors seek a safe haven, a secure store for their wealth. Gold - mmmmmm, gold - has long been the safest of safe havens. Safer than banks. Safer than anything, really.

Now that the chill winds of uncertainty are blowing, more and more investors are turning to gold.

So many that HSBC bank on New York’s Fifth Avenue just can't cope with the amount of bullion being kept in its vaults. Fleets of armoured security trucks are currently leaving Manhattan, loaded with gold bars and coins for safe-keeping elsewhere.

Apparently, gold is so damn popular across the board that HSBC - among others - has issued an edict that it wants all the poxy little retail investors to remove their single bars and coins to "make space" for big institutional customers.

The price of gold has gained 32 per cent this year and this week has been the best yet - Gold hit a new record of $1164 an ounce on Monday.

So, surely, now we're short of the old readies, perhaps Brown and Darling should cash in some of our ... oh, no ... wait ....

When our beloved leader, Gordon Brown, became chancellor in 1997, we had 715 tons of gold - an amount that had remained unchanged since the 1970s.

Lord Burns, then permanent secretary at the Treasury, said that he "recalls no significant discussion over the selling of gold" during his period time there between 1991 and 1998.

However, he left in July 1998 and within months Brown and his cronies had decided to flog more than half the country’s gold reserves. As with everything McBroon touches, this exercise was a spectacular fucking failure.

Brown offloaded our gold at a 20-year low in the market — its actually now known as the “Brown Bottom”. The average price received was $275 an ounce.

Thats $275 an ounce. Yup. And on Monday it was $1164 an ounce. Fucking genius.

Maurice Fitzpatrick of Grant Thornton, who is a much politer man than CF said:

“With the benefit of hindsight this was obviously a very poor investment decision for the country.”

Yeah, and the rest, mate. CF's quote would be slightly more pithy:

Thanks for nothing, Gordon, you fucking idiot.

_