‘Unlucky’ Brown sees gold value rise to unprecedented level

As Chancellor – and to widespread shock, Gordon Brown sold off half of the UK’s gold reserves around the millennium, losing then £2 billion in the process. It’s a lot worse now. As any rookie knows, gold rises in value at times of financial instability and yesterday (30th September) saw the value of gold rise to unprecedented levels.

The charitable describe Brown as an ‘unlucky’ Chancellor. Others raise serious issues of judgement.

In April 2007 Brown faced questions in parliament after The Sunday Times revealed that he dismissed advice from the Bank of England before selling off more than half the country’s gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

Insiders involved in the decision broke ranks at the time, after 18-months where the Treasury blocked The Sunday Times’s attempts to make public the official advice given to the Chancellor before he sold the gold. They revealed that Bank of England officials had serious concerns over Brown’s determination to sell 400 tons of bullion in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002. At that time the price of gold was at a 20-year low. Between that time and April 2007 when Brown was questioned in the Commons, the price had almost trebled, leaving his ill-considered action costing the taxpayer an estimated £2 billion then. The loss at today’s prices is eye-watering and profoundly damaging.