At the pre-G20 London Summit at St Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday, Gordon Brown opened up with a lengthy speech on the current financial crisis.  By the end of it, I was fuming.

Despite the economic collapse, the Prime Minister insisted that a capitalist system of globalisation was still a viable option for the world market, saying that you "Don't re-design a boat in the middle of the storm."  It was to be the first in a series of complete absurdities to be uttered from Mr. Brown's lips - when that "boat" has been completely battered and destroyed, surely it's about time to start from scratch with a different blueprint in mind, i.e. a different ideological approach.

The PM went on to outline four main challenges facing the world leaders when they meet on Thursday - financial instability, climate change, violent extremism and poverty.  It is the same mantra we have been hearing for years now - who knows if the members of the G20 will finally fulfil their all too often empty promises when they meet this week.

Gordon Brown did show his human side when he recognised the fact that for most families in Britain, "the most important financial summit happens around the kitchen table."  However, it is hard to sympathise with such rhetoric when it was Mr. Brown himself who laid the foundations for the economic collapse in his previous position as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Prime Minister recognised that banks "which should be safe-houses for your money, were too often speculators"... the very same banks he has just spent billions of pounds of the taxpayer's money on bailing out.  But despite making some admittedly accurate observations on the downfall of the current ailing financial system, Mr. Brown said that it "would be absurd to blame the private sector".  Maybe the New Labour leader needs a lesson on Labour's founding socialist principles.  The PM thinks that although "crass materialism is unacceptable... the pursuit of growth is freedom".  It's this so-called "pursuit of growth" that got us into this mess in the first place - to me, freedom means the right to have a say in our government's decisions, isn't that democracy?  It's a democratic right distinctly lacking in the UK today.

Mr Brown said that the leaders of the G20 needed to provide what he calls the "oxygen of confidence".  I, for one, have no such confidence in these leaders - they have ruined our world economy, and now they have the cheek to call a meeting to decide what to do next!

In his closing "final message" to the G20, Gordon Brown warned against a "blame game" which he said he observed in a recent meeting with Lula, Brazil's current left-wing leader:

"Lula said that when he was working in the trade unions, he blamed the government, when he was a member of the opposition, he still blamed the government, and now that he's a member of the government, he blames the USA and Europe."

At least Lula has the guts to speak the truth.  Far more than can be said of our own Prime Minister.

Words: Jody McIntyre, 18.  Revolution.