Home > The Magazine > The Week

Saturday 22 November 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Make your excuses and go

Wednesday, 3rd September 2008

The Spectator on the difficulties engulfing the Government

Politicians, like novelists, are obsessed by posterity. Practitioners of the here and now — tomorrow’s headline, the latest poll, the next electoral hurdle — they nurse secret and often vainglorious hopes that their greatest plaudits will come in the future. Before New Labour swept to power in 1997, senior Blairites used to joke about the need to get ‘their betrayals in early’. Now, 11 years later, as the government disintegrates painfully and publicly, Cabinet ministers are rushing to get their side of the story across, to make excuses, and to pass the buck.

Few political interviews have been parsed so closely or caused such an instant storm — financial and political — as Alistair Darling’s cri de coeur in Saturday’s Guardian. It has been argued by the Chancellor’s champions that he was only speaking the truth (if so, why didn’t he speak the truth on Budget Day?) and that his remarks were those of a commendably frank politician relaxing on holiday and unaware that what he said would whip up such a frenzy. Yet it is scarcely credible that Mr Darling, a veteran survivor who has been a senior minister throughout the New Labour era, would not have paused for thought before choosing his words.

Indeed, his language seemed hyperbolic by calculation. It is simply wrong to say that the economic times ‘are arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years’, as anyone who can remember the last Labour government knows full well. ‘This coming 12 months,’ the Chancellor added, ‘will be the most difficult 12 months the Labour party has had in a generation, quite frankly.’ Worse than the 1987 and 1992 elections, then? In case anyone had missed the point, Mr Darling explained that ‘people are p***ed off with us’. With friends like these, the Prime Minister must have thought, who needs David Cameron?

1 | 2 | 3 Next page

Teledu

September 6th, 2008 8:20am

Why the need for a phrase in a foreign tongue right at the end of the article? Is this to show everyone how well educated you are?
Aren't you capable of making a point in English? You seemed to be doing all right until then.
Aren't there enough words / phrases in English to get your point across?
Or are you simply showing off?

Stephen

September 6th, 2008 1:21pm

Yes Mr Darling is clearly wrong. The economy is nowhere near as bad as it was in 1990-92 and 1980-83 under the previous Tory governments.

Tom

September 9th, 2008 2:46pm

No. But it's going the way of '78, something Labour continually forget about. After every Labour government, is an economic crisis, even the most fleeting of glances at British Political history since 1945 tell you that. The Conservative's economic crises are almost always the result of Labour's years in power, where they have a tendency to overspend massively, with few results, and a disregard for the general population. 1980-1983 for instance, was a concequence of Callaghan's abuse of the economy in 77/78. When the Conservative's get in again, the economy will be poor. Labour, and the likes of 'Stephen' will turn round and accuse them of ruining the economy - when anyone with even half a brain, will realise that it's Gordon Brown's decade of incompetance that's the real root of the problem.

A child of our time

From the economic and psychological bedlam of the global downturn has emerged a particularly dangerous false dichotomy: namely, that there is somehow a choice for ministers over the next few years between economic reconstruction and the repair of Britain’s broken society, and that the government (whether Labour or Conservative) must prioritise the former at the expense of the latter.

Diary

Anne Robinson

The daughter and I spent the last few days before the American election in Arizona.

Politics

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

The Spectator's Notes

Charles Moore

‘A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.’ So said Ben Bernanke, now the chairman of the Fed, in a speech about how to ward off the ‘extremely small’ chance of deflation, which he delivered in 2002.