William Rees-Mogg: We may want to borrow but will anyone lend?

Shortly before Christmas, the Speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman, invited a group of peers and journalists to a meeting to discuss the economic crisis. I was particularly struck by the contribution of Lord Howe of Aberavon, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the early years of the Thatcher Government.

He said that his memory of the financial crisis when the Conservatives returned to power in 1979 was not whether the Government should borrow, but whether it could borrow.

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