Darling exhumes Cameron's Big Mistake

Mike

True enough.

Pre-crash Tories: "Labour's stolen all our policies!"

Post-crash Tories: "It was socialism all along!"

Rhoda Klapp

..or you could report on primary schoolchildren arguing about who's got the red crayon.

Or maybe you could go back to the CH in 2007-8 and see who, right here among the commenters, was recommending cuts. And have been ever since. Way ahead of the stupid tories and their daft positioning designed for headline effect not actual economic reasons at all. Did I write positioning? Posturing mught be nearer the mark. Did I ever happen to mention that they were a bloody useless opposition? I think I might have.

TrevorsDen

Darling has a nerve. How can an opposition make serious judgements when they do not have the figures. Oppositions can only base plans on the published figures and darlings deficit and growth and tax raising predictions were grossly optimistic.

Many critics at the time were criticising Cameron for not being more forthcoming about cutting taxes!

But in any case that was then and now is now compare Darling's predictions at the time for the deficit and what the actual turnout figures are. The Govt can only base its figures on what it finds And it found darlings tenure of office to have been uselessly incompetent.

Perry

Given that the HM Loyal Opposition sat on their hands for the better part of ?how many years, it takes little effort to draw attention to their woeful performance.

Apart from Boris, who else in the Speccy resolutely pointed up the lacklustre spectacle - of an oppo coyly watching while Britain was sytematically destroyed and burned to ashes?

Shame on them!

Dimoto

Yawn, if Cameron had gone for cuts a full two years before the election, and before the financial crisis/recession made them respectable, the Labour liars and their media fellow travellers would have had him for breakfast.

Isn't this supposed to be a serious blog ? Everyone knows the constraints Cameron was under.

Dead man walking Darling's latest witterings are of no account whatsoever.

GeoffH

Ah, but the point is does Darling still believe that Labour's spending plans as of the end of 2008 are still relevant?

No, two budgets, one Autumn statement and a postponed Comprehensive Spending Review holed those well below the water line, so it's not only a cheap jibe but also an irrelevant one.

Tim W

Darling is spot on in saying that the Tories supported Labour's spending plans. It was Cameron's version of Blair saying he wouldn't raise taxes. Cameron should be given credit for recognising this was a massive mistake. However, Cameron's next massive mistake will turn out to be ringfencing the NHS.

The fact that Darling now appears to be on the right-wing of his party shows how crazy Labour are.

toni

Good on him and about time too. Tories were on a hiding to nothing if they thought for one minute that their well rehearsed mantra of ‘sharing the proceeds of growth’ had been forgotten.

Verity

Dimoto - "Dead man walking Darling" ... No, dead man walking, or posturing, Cameron, who, in four and a half years in Opposition did bloody all to save our country from the virulent communists and is now posing about with a new kid, as though anyone gives a crap.

On the other hand, he is such an arrogant moron, and harbours such ambitions for the Nomenklatura lane in Bruxelles, it's probably safer to keep him posing about with his kids than allow him to get his febrile hands on policy-making.

TGF UKIP

Wow! This really is very brave of you Pete. As an employee of the Cameron house mag and a young man making his way in the world of the Village, it is indeed impressive that you so openly risk the wrath of your Editor.

What you might also have pointed out, of course, is that Dave lied about this on several occasions, notably in his Election Paxman interview when he said that they had resiled from matching Labour spending in 2007. I full accept, though, that to have pointed that out, would have been bravery almost of the kamikaze variety.

Meanwhile, on a parallel issue, following the Danny Alexander assertion in a weekend newspaper interview, that LibDem tax policy was now government tax policy, I have been patiently waiting for some comment on this on these pages.

Little surprise, therefore, that none has been forthcoming given how embarrassing that must be for Dave and, ergo, for his house mag and its blogging offshoot.

Amusingly, though, given the tenor of its editorial today no such embarrassment exists over in the other barclay publishing arm the Telegraph. There again, though, perhaps the DT editor is not quite so besotted as Fraser Nelson is with his beloved Cam.

TrevorsDen

Hello Tim W -- So you and your family are never going to be sick or injured or ever have a baby?
Can you tell us the secret?

Why would you want to see spending on health cut? Are you a masochist perhaps?

Health spending faces huge problems as it is and cuts in programmes and services and staffing will be inevitable even within its current budget allocation.

I suggest next time you see one of Pavlov's dogs you kick it instead of whistling after it.

Holly

Labour bods can say whatever they like,they always have.
However, puting their great sounding words into reality has eluded them for as long as I can remember.
In the '70's Labour was dictated to by the left. They taxed & spent...Resulting in an economic mess.
In the '97 election they appeared to have moved right,yet STILL,as a party taxed & spent...Resulting in an economic mess,even bigger than the last one.
Where can they go from this point?
Their core belief is to tax & spend.
Labour have lost the trust of the left,the right & the middle,to deliver what they say.
The rich NEVER needed or wanted them..so where now for Labour?
You can not keep lurching from one side to the other & expect the majority to trust you
I have NEVER got my head around Labour.Their
policies in action can never work out for this country,it is too diverse,financially & socially.
Whoever wins this 'contest',has a long time to be the bickerer from the opposition benches.
The Lib Dems are proving to be more mature in power than any Labour bod has been,which is a credit to them.
Of course there would be rumblings to begin with,from both parties,yet their ability to work together is clear.
The Lib Dems/Conservatives will bring about a far better country than they started with and will be rewarded by the voter at the next general election.
You only have to read about the pissy unions
boycotting the Gove school policy to understand the left are quite happy with you,if you are flat on your back,with their big size 12 boot holding you down,promising
they are there to help the poor...If only they would ....take their bloody boot off you!!...you would help yourself.
Labour eh??
Do we really want to go back to Harriet or Yvette or any Ed?

Tulkinghorn

Charles hercock

Surely you support coaltion efficiency

Are you a profligate Darling-Brown

normanc

I actually have a lot of time for Alistair Darling. I don't agree with him politically but he seems the best of a bad lot and he at least gives the impression of being honest and wanting to do well for the country. Labour would do well to employ him in the Shadow Cabinet.

Opposite Vince Cable maybe? Should make for Vince getting red in the face during debates!

Simon Stephenson

normanc : 9.09pm

Darling honest? Not according to my definition of honesty, I'm afraid.

He's a Labour politician, and, like all of them he's trying to convert the country to a mega-authoritarian, high-tax, high-spend society, but is terrified that the general public will twig this before it's too late. Therefore, every policy statement by every member of the party is a deception built around camouflaging what's actually going on.

Don't trust any of them further than you can spit. Look for what they don't say, not what they do.

Victor Southern

Verity - you are astonishingly mean-spirited. I sit something in the water in Mexico that makes you so bitter? I suppose at least 90% of the people in the UK wish the Camerons well with their new daughter - you can turn it into an extension of your monotonous chant of hate.

Mark M

I hadn't forgotten that one. That promise is the reason the Tories didn't win the election. They should never have tried to outspend Labour - they should have spent those good years pointing out government waste and poor practice, and making sure we all knew what a mistake it is to borrow in order to fund your inefficiencies.

They didn't, and really if I was their opponent I'd bring this up every time. It makes the Tories look reactive rather than proactive (to use awful management speak).

Verity

Victor Southern, I would say that at least 90% of the people in Britain don't give a monkey's about Cameron's new kid.

Cameron means nothing on the national panorama. He's the temporary joint chief executive, that's all. There is no emotional tie, as there is with royalty or a national hero. This arrogant individual, who couldn't even get elected PM after 4 1/2 years in Opposition, has tried to turn the perfectly ordinary birth of this perfectly unexceptional baby into a national event.

All his little public relations tricks are so simplistic and obvious. Cameron can't do opacity or entendre. Maybe for his next appearance with the kid - and believe me, there will be one - he could call the agency of those two A-List huskies he used to such great effect (they outshone him) on that Swedish ice floe.

The water in Mexico's fine, thank you.

Major Plonquer 1

Good grief! Does this mean we won't be sharing the proceeds of growth then?

DavidDP

I suggest this will have as much effect has the Tories pointing out Labour supported ERM membership did.

Fergus Pickering

What the hell does it matter what anyone said or did in 2008? It's what they say and so now that counts. And Labour has nothing to say and nothing to do.

Oh, and Verity, shut up, woman. Did CXameron resist your advances or something?

Paul

But Balls has spent the last few weeks saying he disagreed with Darling's decision to cut spending and raise VAT, so what does Darling think he's going to achieve with this? Why doesn't he go the whole hog, and try and point out Sir Robert Peel's changes of mind in Conservative policy?