Brown and Cameron’s Commons clash serves as the warm-up for tonight’s debate

Ian Walker

He's not withdrawing the support. He's simply not taking the money out of people's pockets, and letting them spend it themselves.

From a Keynesian point of view government spending is no better or worse than personal spending.

luke

Its pretty obvious you can only spend these savings once. Darling is spending them to bring down the deficit in future years. Osborne is spending them to cut taxes right away.

Who is right? Will depend on whether the public care more about lower taxes or the deficit, and I expect Osborne's measure will be the more popular one.

Worth throwing away his credibility on the deficit? Im not so sure

Tim Carpenter LPUK

I mean, three grown men arguing if we can or cannot save 1% of spending when we need to cut back 20x that?

Deckchairs. Titanic.

Naomi Muse

Good strategy. Good scene setting. If Alistair D responds in the same way as Ed Milli earlier today, then he will not say anything about what Labour will do, but just do a Balls-like laugh at paraphrased Tory suggestions.

Ed Milli's reaction today was like playground taunting rather than rational thought.

Richard

it's going to be car crash tv.
Double pincer movement with Oik like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Just seen Brown give Shameron the rub down...Getting exciting now...hehe

Tim W

Great press conference this morning - watched it all.
It needed to be done before tonights debate and its timing is perfect.
The main problem is Stephanie Flanders on the BBC - a woman with proper Labour bias.

The attacks from Labour and Lib Dems are that it is 'fantasy/schoolboy economics'. More use of Ken Clarke should shut that up.

Diane C - London

The Tories need only plug away at Darling's own admittance that £11 billion is being wasted each year by this Government. Yet he will not start reigning it in until 2011/2012! As Osborne so rightly said, it's the policy of the madhouse.

Anna

>>the Tories for ‘efficency and aspiration’ and Labour for ‘waste and taxes'<<

This is a good line, about the only one among all the waffle that's made me think "that's what I want!"

Probably better if they spell 'efficiency' correctly though - the error doesn't look very efficient!

Olaf Rye

I really cannot understand how Labour, and their apologists, can make a case in favour of this government taking prudent decisions to restore economic growth. This government has brutally punished the private sector during its tenure in office and has presided over the most profound economic contraction in modern history, raised the debt to an absurd level, and continues to run record deficits. All their talk of controlling spending is insane--halving the deficit in four years still adds hundreds of billions to the total debt. Moreover, there is also a sinister move to imply that government will lift us from this morass. Only the private sector can do this, and Labour does nothing to support them, indeed, they penalise them through taxation and regulation. If those that support Labour can explain why our credit rating is at threat, why it costs five times as much to insure our gilts against default as it does German gilts, why 'the best placed nation to weather the recession' is the one that has emerged from it last with anaemic growth, then perhaps there might be a sensible debate. At the moment, there are merely shrieks of not endangering recovery--well, there is no recovery, and all we see for that £1.4 trillion debt is a massive civil service that is primarily paid to snoop on us and regulate our lives to enact those thousands of new laws passed by Labour and their EU chums.

David Ossitt

Tim W

“The main problem is Stephanie Flanders on the BBC - a woman with proper Labour bias.”

Tim I am sorry to be a bit picky; but should that not read as ‘improper Labour bias?’

JONNY

Seeing Brown giving Shameron the rub down...
eh eh eh eh

How does your brain work Richard?
Today it's churning out stuff as stale as last week's boiled cabbage soup.

Marcher Baron

@David Ossitt "Tim W “The main problem is Stephanie Flanders on the BBC - a woman with proper Labour bias.” Tim I am sorry to be a bit picky; but should that not read as ‘improper Labour bias?’"

Surely, David, that depends on whether you're employed by the BBC or not?

Moriarty

I don't understand why Cable is taking part in tonight's debate. Did he invite himself?

old fogey

If you thought that la Flanders showed bias then you should have heard Norman Smith on the radio 4 at 1.00pm. He was insistent that the shadow chancellor had dug himself a deep hole and created problems for himself and the Tories. I've never COMPLETELY subscribed to the anti -Tory bias of the BBC, but events over the last few months, including Ashcroft eg, have changed my mind; I simply dont trust the BBC anymore.

Sacre Bleu

Me too, Moriaty. Same applies to Cleggy and the next set of programmes. No place for Alec Salmon who is a leader albeit in Scotland, but OK for someone is is never going to be leader of anything very relevant. Heard all the reasons against Salmon which one has to accept but since the next PM job is a two horse race why waste a third of the programme time on an also ran.

Sacre Bleu

Watched Politics Show last night led by Jon Sopel I think. A Midlands audience had the floor to question Cameron and the presenter had a simple job of calling people to put their questions. Easy you might think but however biased you feel Dimbleby appears, in line with BBC policy, Sopel, if that was his name knocked Dimbleby into a cocked hat.

AG

Tim W comes from Yorkshire, that's why it's "a woman with a (right) proper bias!"

Major Plonquer

Stephanie Flanders on the BBC called Osborne's tax measures 'fantasy/schoolboy economics'.

Good grief! In my shoolboy fantasies we don't do much discussion about economics. No.

Dr John Dellingham

The debate will I'm sure become more pointed as the election nears but with the possible intervention of the odious Blair on the horizon after today, the debate will take a different tone. If there's one person in particular guaranteed to want to make one to give up on the whole thing it is he, perhaps doomsday is closer than we originally thought.