What is the difference between Gordon Brown and Bernard Madoff

The answer is very little if you read what Jeff Randall writes in his Telegraph column this morning.

one has drained fortunes from gullible victims, plundering their income and savings to create an illusion of prosperity. The other is going to jail.

Rather harsh you may think but Randall thinks that as for Madoff's nickel-and-dime swindle

when set alongside the 12-year con trick perpetrated by Mr Brown on British taxpayers. That, too, has been a form of Ponzi, but with many more zeroes and little chance of the mastermind ending his days in what Americans call Crowbar Hotel.

adding that

Every year, the sums required to shore up the house of cards became bigger and bigger. But while the good times rolled, too few cared to notice what was really going on.