Where's the contrast?

Bruce Robertson

Do the Tories still have Kirsty Allsop as housing adviser? Now there's a remarkably stupid thing to do.

Travis Bickle

Your reaction is exactly why they should have kept quiet until this blows over. If they did have good ideas (and I hope to god they do) then brown would only steal them and claimed they were his along.

Maggie

Its been clear for some time that the Barclay brothers are hellbent on destroying the Telegraph and driving its readers into the arms of The Times. Does your new found supine admiration for Gordon Brown coupled with your condemnation of all things Cameron indicate that the Spectator has embarked on the same kamikaze strategy?

cuffleyburgers

I didn't think Osborne this morning on Today was a complete train smash but he showed up his vulnerability to the maintain-labour-spending torpedo.

They must learn to say that that was because obviously an abrupt change of spending levels would cause hardship and chaos, but that the less noted part of their message was that overall levels were too high and tory reforms would aim to bring them down by a change of approach. That by pushing localism they expect to reduce the costs of over centralization etc. It's kind of plausible!

Fact is they have been too quiet for too long. We have all been blogging furiously for the last 18 months or more that they should unslip the attack dogs and the cameroons have blithely ignored us. Now they are drinking in the last chance saloon and the barman is reaching for his bell pull; the kennel door is opening ... but unfortunately Osborne isn't really fierce enough.

Ken Clarke would be a more convincing mastiff provided someone shot him if he talked about Europe.

oldtimer

You say: "So you’d ration debt, rather than adjust interest rates?"

I did not hear him put it as an either or choice. There is no doubt that bank debt to capital ratios have become too high and that government and personal debt has become too high. The severe deleveraging we are now experiencing in the financial system makes that all too evident. It makes sense to me to try to devise institutional mechanisms to control this in the future.

Ricardo

"The Cameroons are genuine Tories, even if they try to disguise it."

Yes, of the Jeremy Cardhouse wing. Who would have thought that the greatest triumph of the recent 1970s revival would have been to have resurrected Ted Heath? Bankers are now, it seems, the unacceptable face of irresponsible capitalism.

This speech is, at best, rather amateurish Clinton-style triangulation (Brown = bad on the left; bankers = bad on the right; Cameron = goody twoshoes in the middle). At worst, it endorses the reversal of Thatcherism for our own good. Because everyone knows you can't trust bankers not to be irresponsible. Just like everyone knew you couldn't reform the unions - and that telephones were a natural monopoly which only the state could run.

Any one for a Greenshield stamp?

Short the UK

He should hammer on the "bubble" angle. Make the public realise that they have just been living in a housing bubble. That there was too much bad money. It will now be destroyed - the quicker the better. Like you say the interest rate policy is key. We need more hawks on the MPC. We have got to get the Brits off property speculation - maybe introducing capital gains: say 15%. The get rich quick mentality on property must end. I think most of our politicians are too scared to tell the debt junkies that there is no money for nothing.

I think the public are ready to hear some hard-headed logic.

They are going cold-turkey and junkies at this stage are very attentive listeners.

Let's have some straight talk!!

Trumpeter Lanfried

Osbourne as shadow chancellor is as useless as a pair of O-fronts. Hague should have been given this brief.

C Powell

Well, the tune should be: we - both individually and as a nation cannot spend what we don't earn. So we need to save more - and make saving worthwhile (ie don't attack pension funds, don't tax savings so highly, make ISAs etc worthwhile, don't penalise low income earners who are able to save by imposing such high marginal tax rates, keep inflation under control) and government must live within its i.e. OUR means. So stop wasting money / stop doing inessential things & do what's necessary efficiently. I think such a message would resonate because it's what ordinary people are doing already anyway. What infuriates them is that government seems incapable - or unwilling - to take the same good housekeeping measures.

Incidentally, I thought Today this morning gave a really good opportunity to Ros Altmann to explain why public sector pensions are unaffordable and, indeed, unjust. I hope the Tories run with this: if the public sector's pensions depended on how well the economy does - in the same way that private sector pensions are - then the public sector might think harder about the effect its measures have on the economy. Quite apart from anything else, it's wrong that we all have to pay more for public sector pensions and before we can even begin saving for our own. She correctly described them as a "public sector pension aristocracy". Of course, action on this front would involve MPs giving up their own very generous arrangements but if the Tories are serious about showing that they are on OUR side, this would be a good measure with which to start.

JR

"This, runs the theory, makes them unable to understand what has happened in the last ten years where uncontrolled money supply created a debt and asset bubble. It, the critics contend, has stripped them of the intellectual self-confidence needed for radical measures."

Money supply over the last 10 years in the UK was driven by increased supply of money created by borrowing - so the arguement is essentially saying money supply growth driven largely by imprudent lending etc has stuffed the economy. That is pretty much the mainstream position?

So the solutions would have either been to run higher interest rates or regulate the market to try and rein in lending and improve the identification, assessment and pricing of debt to ensure proper capitalisation of institutions and lower levels of personal debt.

You've said the solution is obviously higher interest rates - is it? Why use a blunt tool that would harm/would have harmed the 'real' economy when the problem lay in the financial market. What would/will the effects of starting to move interest rates out of kilter with other nations and out of kilter with the real indicators the market understands. What would this do to inflation expectations? How much would you have to vary interest rates by to make a real impact on behaviour? Would the scale of interest rate increases needed to deal with the finance market problem be politically acceptable in view of their deflationary effects.

I'm not saying the debt responsibility mechanism is the answer at all but facing the historical problem I completely disagree that using interest rate changes in a seemingly 'booming' economy where half the banks debts weren't even clear to them themselves would work either!

Nigel Barlow

Snap Fraser,
There is simply nothing of any substance in it.Partisan politics at its best

Tiberius

Analogies have their limitations but...

We are in an economic sandstorm and Brown has covered everyone's face in a scarf. Undoubtedly the best option available and so Cameron has gone along with it.

No one is asking Brown where the nearest oasis is, either because they don't want to trouble him with a difficult question (the Left, the BBC) or because they know they'll just get bollocks back. But both groupings, displaying the reverse side of their respective coin, want Cameron to provide an answer.

Perhaps, Fraser, it would have been best if Cameron had kept quiet. I thought Portillo last week set out well why this was wise. But the clamour for a response has brought him out, and perhaps he's come out too soon.

I don't think I've heard any wise old bird say how this economic crisis is going to pan out, so now is a time when radical plans are more likely to come back and stuff you rather than provide a route to water.

As some have already said, time is now the Tories' friend, and that is what they should make most use of.

TrevorsDen

So what is wrong with the world?

The fact is there is nothing much wrong with the world that a return to sensible economics and regulation will not put right.

No what you want 'off pat' is a pain free solution.

Well there is not one. We can return to 'normalcy' OK - eventually - but in between there will be pain.
Government can tinker at the edges and dress it up like its some clever thinking but that all.

Cameron will do better than Brown because Conservatives are better than socialists.

But no-one can ease the inevitable pain of a recession.
As Brown is the one in power he can pull the levers of power to hid his mistakes and buy votes - he will spend spend spend - but that is just deferring the issue and pain.

Thats the challenge of opposition to expose..

geoff

Hang on coffleyburgers. Osborne went on the Today programme this morning to talk about a story the tories were themselves running. They controlled the agenda, it wasnt in response to some disaster, this was their story.

AND YET, he had not the first clue what he would do differently. He seemed almost offended by the questions, and then got stuck talking about the 2005 election campaign.

It was a total car crash!

Athesius the Facilitator

Fraser- For goodness sake man hasn't it truly dawned on you yet that Cameron has to play the long game. If he says anything radical he will be either jumped on or copied. He is in a terrible position at the moment. His biggest cock up however is his and Osbornes lack of visibility. Ed Balls's missus pops up all the time. She is rubbish and just repeats a pre-prepared mantra but at least she's popping up. And she gets friendly questions. People want to see Osborne be strong when he gets harrangued by the leftie news presenters. At the moment substance is irrelevant. He just needs to be told to get stuck in.

Pete, Scotland

Just watched a Tory spokeswoman on Sky news at around 4pm.

Didn't catch who she was but I was very impressed with her ballsy attack on Labours record.

Also, the way Salmond absorbed the attacks against the SNP and then calmly turned them into an attack on Brown was a masterclass that all oposition parties should study.

Encore: get these two back on.

Fraser Nelson

JR, I'd like a rate cut. But I do believe underpriced debt led to the boom - and Cameron seems to be suggesting he believes ration bank lending. It was this that my source referred to as "nonsense on stilts". I really do see it as easy: asset booms are the product of too much borrowed money, as defined by the cost of money, as mispriced by the BoE which was instructed to chase the wrong meeasure: inflation.

Tiberius, plenty people are asking "what's Cameron saying about this" and his answer seems to be "that Brown is a villain" which we kinda knew.

Faceless Bureaucrat

FFS!!!!

Whatever happened to the real ‘Conservative Party’?

CMD and BG have been in stasis for the best part of a fortnight now and the best they can come-up with after such a tranquil period is this tosh…

I quite accept that they do not want to give Brown any half-decent policy options to steal, but what people want is someone taking-on Brown and exposing his implication in this current debacle. For G*d’s sake will NO-ONE fight for the ordinary people of this country? There was a time when the Conservative Party were dependable – what when wrong?...

Martin Griffin

Brown has destroyed my pension, made sure I can get no dividends from my bank shares and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. Cameron spelt out the reasons for this and someone has to! The press thinks Brown is a hero whereas for most of us he is nearer to Satan. Anyone who thinks this recession will be over by the end of 2009 is in cuckoo land. We will need 10 years to recover our pensions and lives, so to think any political party has an instant solution to the situation is not real. Brown doesn't know what to do; his objective is only to cling to power. The press aren’t going to blame Brown so why knock Cameron for spelling it out.

Ricardo

C Powell:"Incidentally, I thought Today this morning gave a really good opportunity to Ros Altmann to explain why public sector pensions are unaffordable and, indeed, unjust. I hope the Tories run with this"

Keep hoping. The pro-Cameroon argument against giving any detail on waste-cutting in Whitehall has always been that they can't risk antagonising the public sector workforce whose votes they need. So this lot are hardly going to promise to slash the pensions of the jobsworths, are they?

I agree Ros Altman was bang on the money - and it's our money - and I'm surprised there weren't more of the usual Today Programme interruptions. But this Long March to victory was always going to be one where non-Cameroons did the marching and Cameron got the victory.

Ian C

Fraser

Listen to the podcasts at Lombard St Research. They have a tune that all will be playing in due course, namely 'borrowings must fall and so savings must rise'. This meanss making it more attractive for savers to save and borrowers to pay down debt -sounds like interest rate rises to me.

Perversely, the stock market will not recover until this is the case as it knows that this is what is needed and is falling because it fears that we are going to get more of what we've had too much of.

In the meantime the headless chickens are running around forcing capital into banks that don't need it and are telling them to lend at 'bust' levels.

The intelligence of our political classes continue to astound. Sadly it is on both sides.

Rhoda Klapp

Savings must rise? If you can find a safe way to save, OK. But they robbed the pension funds, so we put the money in the bank. It went bust, so we bought a buy-to-let flat. We lost the value of that because of a housing bubble so we put it into the post office/NSI. then we retired and need to be looked after so they took that money while looking after the feckless for nothing. Saving? DMMFL.

Diversity

the idea that Brown understands a whistlable tune is priceless! But on economics, he does make a less bad shot at it than Cameron.

We still have to see if the voters will pick up the very whistlable offering from the Clegg/Cable duo.

Summer

"Cameron saying about this" and his answer seems to be "that Brown is a villain" which we kinda knew."

Some people know this Fraser, but many are still stuck on the BBC's 'master of the universe' tune. So in my opinion David is better hammering the 'villain message' home first.

I agree with the notion that to come out with policies now means they'll be pinched. Just what is Brown's policy exactly? That is more the question. Apart from a dubious bail our, he just seems to want to bully people into returning eveything to 'normal' - 2007 mortgage levels, petrol and energy prices, oh and if you haven't got a job you can become a house insulation 'fitter'. Is this a policy I ask you?

You've written some good pieces about Brown, just keep on doing so. Let him hang himself, then the Tories can come up with policies.

Huw Thornton

I agree that there's not a lot of practical policy suggestions in this speech, Fraser. DC should get some sort of prize for talking the longest and saying the least. But the important thing with this speech is not the content, but that it was given at all - to announce an end to the apparent inactivity of the Conservative leadership.

It's going to take some time before DC and Osbourne can give a full raft of policy proposals, and rightly so. They will not be able to match the Government's speed of action, and they shouldn't try. Let's now get a slow buildup of effective opposition rather than an attempt at flashy policy proposals.

TGF UKIP

There's more than an element of exhausting every other available option before coming to the right conclusion, in Fraser Nelson as well.

For the first two thirds of this post I was getting the hosannas and hallelujahs ready as I thought you were at last facing up to what an irredeemably lame and lightweight pair your two heroes are. But no, you couldn't quite bring yourself to get there could you?

They manifestly don't and can't do populist, they even more obviously ain't serious, heavyweight policy men. So, Fraser, as time goes by and they fail to bring Britain's worst ever government to account and increasingly fail to provide a credible alternative team of PM and Chancellor, your options really are fast disappearing. One day soon your really are going to have to confront the full horror of your grievous error and make a full confession.

A confession too long delayed does, though, make absolution more difficult and requires a greater penance. Still, when you do finally get there you will find there is a wonderful purgative feeling from the final renunciation of your past addictions.