This travesty of democracy is the cause of our economic woe

The consequence of Sir Digby Jones departure from government (see below) meant there was a gaping hole at the cabinet table (well, physically, but obviously not intellectually - we didn't really notice him while he was there) in the trade brief.

Replacing Jones will be Mervyn Davies (adding to the wholesale underwriting of this government by Standard Chartered bank) as Brown's new 'goat'.

Jones' quote on entering Government that "how I vote is my own affair" lead to questions about the mandate of Gordon Brown's regime, but this was quickly spun with the claim that the wider representative base was a 'Government of all the talents', which was especially needed in times of economic turmoil.

Well, we've still got the economic turmoil (although not according to Baroness Shriti Vadera, aka 'the Shriek'), and Brown has clearly failed to utilise all their talents to solve it.

So we are forced to return to ask questions about Brown government policy mandate again.

Brown derives his power from an amazingly small sample of the population. He won 58% of the votes in his constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, for a party which gained a 35% share of the total cast at the last election under his predecessor, before he was unopposed in his path to become the new leader.

With Lord Peter Mandelson, Baroness Vadera at and now Mervyn Davies replacing Digby Jones in ermine, we have multiple government ministers appointed to their posts who are unable to answer questions from elected representatives of the people.

With such a questionable mandate it cannot also be wise to resist adequate means of accountability for governmental actions, otherwise more controversial decisions (such as the over expansion of Heathrow) will be given the go-ahead without sufficient scrutiny.

So Brown is successively and cumulatively undermining our parliamentary democracy - he has fixed the system so that it is prevented from accounting for its actions in public.

And as every businessperson will tell you, if you don't have to present your accounts there is no way of checking that everything is in order.

Tell me again, why is the economy in trouble under Gordon Brown?