Politics

3 January 2009

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

But most of all, the Tories need to offer a different approach to the economy. Mr Cameron is making good headway in warning about Mr Brown’s debt, and defying the media consensus in saying that more debt is not the answer. He recently appeared on breakfast television explaining to a family chosen by GMTV that the Prime Minister’s debt binge risks pushing their mortgage rate higher. The rhetoric and political positioning is in place — but the numbers, alas, are not.

Should the child at that GMTV breakfast table have asked, ‘But how much would you increase debt by?’, Mr Cameron would have had to dodge the question — because he has no good answer. He rightly rails at Labour proposals to take the national debt from £520 billion to £1,080 billion. But what is his alternative? Without cutting spending it will be at least £1,000 billion. There is no real difference between these two outcomes, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

Britain is being bankrupted not by a Brown splurge, but by the day-to-day cost of government. Words will not blow the debt away. Any British prime minister faces a choice between massive debt or sharp real-term spending cuts. This choice is becoming rapidly apparent to Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne. Their policy, as it is now, will not stand the scrutiny of an election campaign. Either they offer cuts, or their electoral manifesto would be a version of saying ‘We wouldn’t have started from here’.

This is not what either Mr Cameron or Mr Hilton had in mind when they undertook the task of rebranding the Conservatives three years ago. But history tends to leave the Tories with the worst jobs. It is Labour’s role to wheel the British economy into the casualty unit, while Conservative prime ministers need to pull on their surgical gloves and operate. It will be a miserable task, and shadow cabinet members wonder aloud whether Mr Hilton will really want to come back to perform it.

Events may yet overtake this conundrum. Mr Brown may himself be forced to make cuts if the world refuses him when he wants even more debt — as he inevitably will in his next Budget. If there is to be a rule for this tumultuous year, it will be this: that there is no rock bottom. There will be no growth of which to share the proceeds. The convulsions which have transfigured the British economy are by no means over. This is why Mr Cameron’s best strategy will be to prepare for the worst — and then some.

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hadrian

December 30th, 2008 10:15pm Report this comment

Eeks- am I really the first to comment in here?!
Anyway, on public spending cuts, I think the Tories will HAVE to face the reality that it'll have to be done- and pretty deeply too. Thing is to wean us off state dependency as gently as can be done. Then the public will feel both reassured and braced to face tougher times with more confidence.
On the EU elections, the 'Irish Question' must be played up for all its worth as indicative of just how deeply undemocratic this lumbering, quasi-imperialistic bureaucracy is and threatens to be. Frankly, even the most pro-EU enthusiasts must be admitting what a mockery the dismissal of the Irish vote has made of the democratic process. Again, as in the Green affair, it is up to the Tories to MAKE he public see and understand. They are there after all to LEAD, not slavishly follow wrongly supposed popular feeling.
The possibility of evem more migrants from benighted parts of the EU ( not to mention the dreaded Turkey ) in such economically stringent times ought to concentrate common sense minds wonderfully. Can our already creaking public services cope with further influxes; what about jobs? Xenophobia? My foot.

Eyo Ita

December 31st, 2008 4:30pm Report this comment

I buy The Spectator to read about 'real' political/economic analysis. Or is that too much to asked?

I will take my custom away, because I am not prepared to read about advice to a party that believes trully in privatising any thing moves, would do in the current world wide economic crises.

Answer me, when Thacther persuaded Sid to buy shares, did she mentioned that those companies will be owned by the French or Germans.

Instead of educating us how this comes about you harp on about European elections

The Masked Marvel

January 3rd, 2009 7:25pm Report this comment

The public will not look to a puffy toff to lead them in times of crisis. The Class War in Britain was won long ago. Even the BBC no longer bother to hide it. The public especially won't trust a puffy toff who doesn't realize they want to hear an actual plan of action and about values to which they can relate, rather than the same things he says during PMQs.

raobert hen ry

January 7th, 2009 9:18pm Report this comment

everything mr nelson says would be possible and most of it necessary, if it weren't for the fact that the Tories have 2 lightweights at the helm who would have no idea how to carry out any economic management. On every one their positions in the last 2 years, they have changed their tune and done a volte face viz green issues, sharing the process of growth etc. No credibility whatsoever.
Read Simon Heffer in monday's Telegraph to understand this point

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