From the crystal ball ...
From my email newsletter of 6 July 2007, 10 days after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister:
"If I were Mr Brown, I'd be keeping a very close look at the property pages. Because if house prices start tumbling, he's going to be in big trouble. Interest rates go up (and, of course, there's nothing he can do about that any more, since he gave the Bank of England full independence over interest rate policy), property prices go down ... result: tens of thousands of very unhappy voters. If their pockets start feeling emptier than they have been for the past decade, they'll stop buying so many giant flat-screen TVs and cheap flight holidays. And before you know it, the economy will be stalling. And whom do you think they'll blame?"
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