The sane:
There is a halfway decent Labour message to be deployed at the next election. Brown might pay lip service to it occasionally. But his heart will not be in it. Why? Because once a man starts doing the political equivalent of sleeping in an oxygen tent, and living in a theme park, and hanging out with a chimp, there’s not much you can do for him. Especially when, deep in his heart, for all the wretchedness, and for all the misery, he still believes the crowd are longing to see him moonwalk.
So don’t believe the shroud wavers who tell you grannies will die and children starve if spending is cut. They won’t. Cuts are inevitable, and perfectly manageable. We should insist on a frank and intelligent debate about how and where they will fall, which will then enable everyone to make more sensible plans.
The daft:
“The idea that you have to have some equity of misery, that because the private sector is suffering the public sector must too, is disgraceful. What it is doing is not understanding the role of public services in a recession – to sustain and rebuild the economy.”
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