Our rulers are turning on the truth. We are doomed.

Moody’s downgraded Greek debt on Monday three notches to Ba1 and assigned it a negative outlook, citing significant risks to its fiscal restructuring programme. This makes Moody’s  is the first to classify Greek government debt as ‘highly speculative’, or ‘You don’ t have to be mad to buy it, but it helps’.

“The fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms that are needed to stabilize the country’s debt metrics remain very ambitious and are subject to significant implementation risks,” Moody’s concluded.

The immediate reaction of the Athens Government (which had been expecting this) was to issue the following  statement:

“At a time when the global economy is fragile and market sentiment is sensitive, unbalanced and unjustified rating decisions such as Moody’s today can initiate damaging self-fulfilling prophecies and certainly strengthen the arguments for tighter regulation of the rating agencies themselves.”

Yup, the Greeks are catching on: the way to get away with it is to kill the messenger.

Accusing Moody’s of  Thought Crime is one thing, but jiggling about with the BoE Monetary Policy Committee is another matter altogether. However, aping the Greeks, Draper Osborne seems to have got his way, by ‘replacing’ the rates-hawk Andrew Sentance with the highly regarded but opposing views of Ben Broadbent….from Goldman Sachs. Aaaarg.

Now what is it, we ask ourselves, that makes Broadbent attractive to Osborne? The FT tells us with a straight face:

‘Mr Broadbent is best known for the view that Britain is well-placed to withstand the fiscal tightening without a damaging effect on the economy. He expects the depreciation of sterling to allow the economy to recover as the public finances improve’.

Not a Labour voter, then. I mean I’m sorry, I happen to agree with that view: but I get worried when our leaders remove those who say uncomfortable things. Words like mad, fascist and wrong spring to mind.

Do the markets think these people know what they’re doing? That’s very doubtful – at one point today, gold reached a new record high of $1,444.