MAIL Online: The Mayor of London launched an extraordinary personal attack on Gordon Brown's handling of the financial crisis today.
Boris Johnson accused the Prime Minister of behaving like a drunk taking a "frantic and unprecedented gamble" with the economy.
"He is like some sherry-crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver at roulette, and who now decides to double up by betting the house as well," the Mayor said.
His attack came as City figures warned that the measures unveiled in the mini-budget posed a grave threat to the future prosperity of London.
One said the new 45 per cent tax rate on earnings above £150,000 would trigger a disastrous "brain drain" of the talent drawn to London during the boom years.
In an article in the London Evening Standard today, Mr Johnson's director of strategy, Anthony Browne, writes: "Alistair Darling has done far more to redistribute wealth here than anywhere else... It is almost as though the budget is the revenge of England on the affluent of Kensington and Chelsea.
"Even at first glance, London has little to cheer from this budget. Whatever the macro-economic arguments about a need for a fiscal stimulus to stave off recession, for the capital this is not really a spend now, pay later budget."
The Mayor described the Prime Minister as a "manic meddler" who was desperately trying to boost the economy to improve his own electoral fortunes.
He accused Mr Brown of treating Londoners like "a bunch of overweight and exhausted laboratory rats" who he hoped would do his bidding. >>> By Jonathan Prynn and Pipa Crerar | November 25, 2008
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