Darling's honesty is good news for the country – but tricky news for Labour

Peter Grimes

A little late, don't you think, so nul points for enforced honesty, such as it is! How will McMental dress this up, as negative investment?

wrinkled weasel

Nobody ever lists Darling as a runner in the possible leadership contest. Why is this? He would wipe the floor.

As a sort of John Major figure, he would be the obvious, anodyne figure that people in the party need to re-group and calm down.

sinosimon

And what percentage of the population will realise the scale of this? Anyone who has actually used their brain already knows that Brown has simply lied through his teeth for the last 18 months, but will the sun or the mirror be able, or willing , to translate this into a 60 second read that joe public grasps? I doubt it.....and we sure as hell won't be seeing Robinson pop up on the Beeb explaining that this curious outbreak of sanity means that either a) Brown was deliberately misleading when he played his investment v cuts panto or b) he really is round the twist and actually believed what he was saying.......will we?

DavidL

Can't wait for the next PMQs. Think Gordon will fancy an emergency trip some(any)where?

R King

Will Fraser be able to spot the change?

oldtimer

No doubt the imminent end of QE will have concentrated minds last Wednesday afternoon.

I also read that Darling exchanged words with the Icelanders earlier in the day over the little matter of $4 billion they owe to us. It also uncomfortably reminds me that, in the process of of "saving the world", Brown saddled the UK taxpayer with a much bigger sum (add a nought or two?) when he took on all the foreign liabiliites of RBS, the former pillar of the Scottish financial establishment. Pillock might be a better description now. When the time comes that these claims on us all start to crystallise, I wonder if we will be offered a referendum on whether we want to pay up or would prefer to default.

And, as I recall, these obligations are not even included in the billions of liabilitied that the government does admit to.

mart

Well an article in the newspapers is a start. But when are the cuts planned to be enacted?

Tom Pride

It is welcome that the Hoon and Hewitt intervention has enabled cabinet ministers to box in Brown and Balls and put a stop to their socially divisive and fiscally irresponsible intentions. But have these people no foresight?

Their actions might well have prevented a financial meltdown for the time being but suppose that Brown was to win the election. He would remain the same perverted monster of a politician but would have a popular mandate with associated political capital. Out would go those who have crossed him and he would be unconstrained, free to re-pursue his deeply damaging policies conducted in his amoral manner.

The only sensible course of action must be for the Cabinet to force him out ahead of the election, unless, they do not anticipate a Labour victory under Brown. In which case they should come clean with the electorate and tell us that in the national interest Brown must not be elected and people should not vote Labour.

Moraymint

"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive"

Story of Brown and Labour in government, eh? Deceit, from ar**hole to breakfast time.

One could despair at the depths to which British politics has been plumbed this past decade or so.

The leader of an organisation is the custodian of the culture - the norms, values and beliefs - of that organisation.

What does all this say about the culture and leadership of British government these days? It's utterly shameful isn't it?

smog

If the Government and its Cabinet are a space opera waiting for a plot then there has to be a backlash?

Darth 'Balls' Vardar and the Counterforce?

Tiberius

I think it's a bit late in the day for Darling to get his deeply-held wish that he can leave office saying honestly,"je ne regrette rien".

denis cooper

But it's "£57 billion worth of spending cuts and tax rises", which could mean anything between no spending cuts and £57 billion of spending cuts.

Either way, it would close less than a third of the gap between spending and revenues.

Talking with someone last week, they had no idea that the government was spending about four pounds for every three that it receives.

I blame the Tory leadership for being so ineffectual at getting the basic message across, a job they're expected to do and for which they're paid additional salary.

Holly ......

What will Darling do when GB has his re shuffle to 'freshen up' the cabinet for the rapidly approaching election?
Brown and Balls are scheming & ploting this very minute.
Perfectly plausible? This would cut both Mandelson and Darling off at the knees.
Promises of special treatment for the chosen few to keep them on side and hey presto.Darling & Mandelson out of the loop.
Brown,Balls & Co can then 'get on with the job'.

JSMill

Is this a cunning plan; Darling talks cuts to keep the lenders and IMF on side and steal the Tories thunder whilst Brown talks spending to keep their core vote on side.

Blofeld's Cat

denis cooper - you and read about this on CoffeeHouse, Guido and other blogs. We hear DC in PMQs ask questions about it which are never answered and we occasionally read about it in some of the broadsheets. We are interested. We care.

Most people don't follow these blogs. Most people know no more about PMQs than the BBC headline. Most people do not read the financial pages in the broadsheets. Most people don't understand the word deficit. Most people can't picture a billion.

Even if the MSM choose to spread the word, most people aren't listening - 'cos it comes from that least respected animal - the politician.

I'm afraid it ain't DC's fault.

Dirty Euro

Darling and Mandelson make no sense.
Square these 3 claims of their arguments.
1. They claim the middle class have had their taxes increased too much.
2. They claim the rich elites have had their taxes increased too much. (Even though their argument has left us poorer than France. )
3. They think more work should be done in cutting the deficit.
The only fair analysis is their plan is that working and lower middle classes people will have to pay for the public service cuts and tax rises instead. With a increase in VAT. A tax on the poor. Thatchers favorite tax.
Mandeslon and Darling have gone native the treasury is run by upper class elitists who want to destroy public services and cut taxes for the rich and remove redistribution. Their ideology has destroyed the UK made us the most unequal abusive society in Europe oh and we are even poorer than East Germany despite having this wonderful low taxes for the rich regime. The thatcher elitists dream has failed. We need to move to the left and have more redistribution.
The labour party must stand for lower middle class against VAT increases.

General Zod

Brown has moved us to the left and the result is an echo of the seventies when we were the sick man of Europe. What you advocate would make the sickness terminal.

Major Plonquer

I agree with Dirty Euro. I mean, like, why should these people keep picking on Gordon Brown. I mean a few little mistakes with the economy, banking reform, defence procurement, unfettered immigration, MPs expenses, broken manifesto commitments, transfer of power to Europe, botched constitutional reform, restricted social mobility, educational achievement, societal breakdown, soaring local taxation, wheelie bin police, human rights restrictions, counter-terrorism and the rest.

These take nothing away from the basic Labour strategy of closing the gap between rich and poor -in a few more years everyone will be poor. Job done.

Peter From Maidstone

Dirty Euro, I really don't know why you post here. You are not even a troll, just an out and out marxist. Socialism has failed again, you need to face facts. It is socialism that has brought us to this present situation and nothing else. It always brings a society to this sort of situation.