Cameron set to thwart Brown’s IMF ambitions

GORDON Brown’s hopes of heading the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were dealt a serious blow yesterday as David Cameron indicated he was ready to block his predecessor’s appointment to the role.

The British Prime Minister said Mr Brown was not the “most appropriate person” to take over as managing director of the IMF because he failed to understand the dangers of excessive debt.

His intervention raised the prospect of a British veto amid heightened speculation that Mr Brown is emerging as a leading contender to take over from Dominique Strauss- Kahn who is deciding whether to be the socialist candidate in the French presidential elections next year.

Labour leader Ed Mili- band insisted the former prime minister and chancellor would be “eminently qualified” and a “strong candidate” for the €300,000-a-year job.

But, asked whether he would veto the move, Mr Cameron said: “I haven’t spent a huge amount of time thinking about this but it does seem to me that, if you have someone who didn’t think we had a debt problem in the UK when we self-evidently do have a debt problem, then they might not be the most appropriate person to work out whether other countries around the world have debt and deficit problems.”

On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Cameron suggested the IMF look to “another part of the world” for its next leader to increase its global standing.

“If you think about the general principle, you’ve got the rise of India and China and South Asia, a shift in the world’s focus, and it may well be the time for the IMF to start thinking about that shift in focus,” he said.

“Above all, what matters is: is the person running the IMF someone who understands the dangers of excessive debt, excessive deficit? And it really must be someone who gets that rather than someone who says that they don’t see a problem.”

Mr Miliband accused Mr Cameron of “jumping the gun” over any potential IMF role for the former prime minister. But he said: “Gordon Brown is an eminently qualified person for that job... Let’s see if the vacancy does arise, but I think he would be a strong candidate.”

David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, accused Mr Cameron today of being “petty” and “vindictive”.

Professor Blanchflower, a supporter of Mr Brown, said Cameron had “zero background or training in economics, and it shows”.

“This is the behaviour of a petty, narrow-minded, vindictive person who is putting his own, and his party’s interests ahead of the nation’s,” he wrote on his New Statesman blog.