All washed up

"I am sorry about what happened."
We are sure he is.

"I was horrified, I was shocked and I was very angry indeed."
We are very sure that, when he read of Guido's revelations of the scandalous activities in the Cabinet office, he was.

"I think the most important thing we do is reassure people everything is being done to clean up politics in our country... I take full responsibility."

Cleaning up politics in our country is a grand ambition, Mr Brown. Will you be calling a general election? Unfortunately, Mr Brown was silent on this matter.

After 12 months more of the Nasty Party inflicting pain and poison on our country, surely, things can only get better.

Brown and Hitler - is there a link?

I listened yesterday to a review of a new film about a young German writer approached by the Nazi propaganda machine because they thought his appeal would be useful to them. He was flattered by their interest and promises of support. But soon he regretted selling his soul to the Devil with no means of escape.

Derek Draper's attraction to the realms of power was rather different. He deliberately sought out the bright lights and important personalities for his own ego and self-aggrandisement.

Damian McBride, on the other hand, was the regime's propaganda agent – Draper's handler. But considering the depth of slurs and lies he was prepared to inflict on the regime's opponents (while sitting in the Prime Minister/Chancellor's office) it might be appropriate to describe him as the Devil's agent. This would, of course, make Gordon Brown the Devil himself.

This is an extreme point of view, undoubtedly. But while reflecting on the significance of Slurgate in our political process, I've been drawn by the potentially narrow line between a self-justifying authoritarian government using propaganda slurs to discredit opposition and the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and any number of other evil dictatorships.

In Britain, we have freedom of the press, even greater freedom of the blogosphere and a history of vibrant but stable democracy. We're not about to allow ourselves to be taken over by a vicious totalitarian political regime. But that is not the point.

The current regime allowed a cabal of propagandists (some as inner circle as it gets ) to prepare an operation that would publicly release a stream of slanderous lies about the political opposition. These techniques are on the wrong side, by a very long way, of the spectrum between open democracy and vile tyrannies we've witnessed in the past – many of which used such methods to justify eliminating not just political opponents but swathes of their own population.

Thankfully, disgust at the revelation of the depths to which Brown would sink is almost universal. His attempts to spin our media have turned all of it against him.

The depressing reality

Given he held a bummer of a hand, Brown would be right to feel pleased about the outcome of his summit. He managed to turn the cards round into a not unsatisfactory show.

The 3000 words of the closing communique amount to one gigantic spin. But that's poker. And we all appreciate a positive shine when the alternative could be immeasurably gloomier.

The participating countries remain with the not insignificant domestic problem of managing the consequences of the financial and economic crisis in their own inimitable way.

But at least we now know that 19 of the world's largest economies – plus the remainder of the EU and several global finance institutions – are jointly agreed that global trade should be supported and no nation, within or without their number, should be abandoned if they threaten to sink.

Since, apart from the direct contribution of a very few wealthy countries, this global financial support is to be achieved by more fiscal sleight of hand, nobody will be unduly inconvenienced and several developed countries will be fortunately saved.

On the broader front, all this G20 really does is send a long term message to global markets that the world's richest nations do not intend to let international trade permanently decline. And where pockets of severe financial instability arise they are prepared to support individual countries through the crisis.

This will make no imminent difference to the negative economic situation faced by Britain, the US, Germany, France, Japan or most of the other highly developed nations. In particular, Britain and the US, where the finance industry has been most exposed, still have to find solutions to their own banking crises.

When, and whenever, the toxic asset overhang they're holding can be resolved, it will provide an immense boost to the objectives set by the G20. But that's an issue the G20 didn't even touch.

So as an upbeat symbol in a time of crisis this G20 looked like a good one. But like an exotic holiday, it will soon be just a memory. We and our great leaders must return to the depressing reality of a long recession.