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A few weeks ago, the Hollywood actor Danny Glover began a petition urging Barack Obama to choose Paul Krugman as his next treasury secretary. The president, sadly, opted for Jack Lew "“ presumably on the grounds there weren't enough deficit hawks, compromise merchants and former Wall Streeters on his team already. Still, one progressive leader's passed-over economist is another's potential star hire. If the Democrats don't want Professor Krugman, then Labour should snap him up. There have been few stronger critics of the disastrous orthodoxy of austerity than the Nobel laureate. True, Ed Balls did mount an impressive plea for fiscal stimulus in the Labour leadership campaign of 2010 "“ but the daily grind of frontbench politics has reduced him to mouthing "too far, too fast". And...