Gordon Brown has plumbed new depths of diplomatic incompetence and financial illiteracy with the announcement that the UK will contribute £1.5bn to a £6.5bn fund for “poor” nations to combat climate change.

The pre-budget report this week set out the bleak outlook for the economy – taxes are going up, £30bn of extra pre-election vote buying, tens of billions of pounds of extra borrowing – but the chosen one has found a spare £1.5bn down the back of the sofa in Number 10 to spend on adverts showing drowning puppies and polar bears in the Seychelles.

But setting aside the idiocy of borrowing £1.5bn to give away to some corrupt, third world tinpot dictatorship to spend on guns and gold plated Mercedes, why are we paying one fifth of the amount being pledged in the name of the European Empire when there are another 26 member states who are supposedly out of recession?  No wonder the economy is in such a state when the person holding the purse strings thinks 6½ divided by 27 is 1½.