MAIL COMMENT: America shows how to handle a crisis

Compare and contrast the American and British reactions to the credit crunch now threatening all our livelihoods.

In Washington, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson - a former high-flying banker - acts swiftly and boldly to take ailing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into public ownership.

The effect on world markets is electric. Share prices bounce back so strongly and rapidly that the London Stock Exchange computer crashes in the stampede to buy.

Meanwhile, analysts begin to speak of light at the end of the tunnel. Though their optimism may be premature, there can be no doubting the stunning effectiveness of Mr Paulson's move.

But at Westminster? Here, the smalltime Scottish lawyer in charge of the Treasury dithers and dallies.

For seven damaging months, Alistair Darling was unable to decide what to do about Northern Rock. Now he can't make up his mind about how to kick-start our paralysed housing market or help those hit hardest by fuel price rises.

All we get are leaks, tinkering and talk of Cabinet infighting - oh, and doom-laden interviews with the Guardian, which depress confidence further.

Certainly, as Philip Delves Broughton argues on this page, the American move has huge drawbacks. It saddles U.S. taxpayers with liabilities estimated at £100billion, while rescuing reckless lenders from the consequences of their greed.

Indeed, many will see it as an astonishing admission of the failure of free markets in the home of capitalism.

But when it comes to confidence-building decisiveness, hasn't our Government a huge amount to learn from the other side of the Atlantic?

Dinosaurs' return

From the TUC conference in Brighton comes the roar of reawakened dinosaurs, as leaders of the public sector unions threaten the worst industrial action since the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79.

What a moment to pick to demand inflation-busting pay rises, when the economy is reeling from the credit crunch and Britain is heading towards recession faster than any other developed country.

The Mail has great sympathy with hard workers in the public sector who are struggling to make ends meet. But they are not the only ones who've been hit by soaring food and fuel prices.

Don't the unions realise it would be economic madness - as well as hugely divisive - for the Government to submit to their demands, at a time when tens of thousands of jobs are at risk in the wealth-producing private sector?

Union leaders may calculate that they have Gordon Brown at their mercy, now that Labour depends on their donations to avoid bankruptcy.

The Prime Minister must prove them wrong. The wider electorate will judge him on how firmly he resists their demands.

If only, Valery...

For once, the Mail can agree with Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who drafted the rejected EU Constitution.

Britain, he says, should be granted 'special status' in the EU to prevent us from 'acting as a brake' on closer integration among our partners.

What a brilliant idea! (And why not start by letting us opt out of the extra £8billion we'll have to contribute to the EU because of the pound's weakness?)

But the former French president seems to need reminding that it wasn't the British who voted against his empire-building Constitution. It was the Irish, the Dutch and - sacre bleu! -  his own fellow countrymen.

The scandal is that our Government signed up to it without even asking us.