Brown Is Still Not Yet Through

With the aftershocks from the financial crisis still rumbling, and the increasing possibility of embattled Eurozone countries resorting to the haircut technique, as I discussed recently, the last thing the world’s money folk needed was for the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get charged with attempted rape and banged up in Rikers Island prison.

Sadly, that is exactly what they got, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was hauled out of the comfy end of an aircraft at JFK and remanded in custody, as he was considered a “flight risk”. For DS-K, the realisation that the USA treats sexual peccadilloes rather differently to his native France comes with the potential collapse of his bid for the French presidency – and a demand that he leave the IMF.

Into this looming leadership void has been pitched one name very familiar to the UK electorate: Gordon Brown. Young Dave and his jolly good best chum the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, are believed to be opposed, still blaming Pa Broon for the country’s debt. What they would have done when faced with potential financial meltdown is of course not revealed.

Moreover, Brown is not apparently actively pushing for the job, but I’m sure he would not object if it were offered. And right now the IMF would be mightily grateful to have a leader that commands respect across the financial community, who appreciates the potential problems facing the world’s economies, and is unlikely to attract the attention of the NYPD as DS-K did.

And if Barack Obama, secretary Geithner, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Juan Manuel Barroso and the rest agree that Brown is their man, it’s going to put Cameron in a corner. And when Young Dave gets put under the cosh, he tends to find a way to back down, and if necessary dump any fallout on someone else. This was the scenario I considered last month.

So I reckon that if there is a push to get Pa Broon into the top job at the IMF, Cameron won’t be for using the veto. Not for long, anyway.