The Standard’s keen-eyed Paul Waugh has already flagged it up, but it’s still worth highlighting Frank Field’s assessment of the PBR in his latest blog post. Even coming from Labour’s insurrectionist-in-chief, some of the remarks are surprisingly cutting. Take this passage, for instance:
“Will the package work? I dearly hope so, but I doubt it. It is not just the size of the injection of demand that troubles me. It is also the means by which that increased demand is being delivered to consumers.
At the end of yesterday’s emergency Budget I was left with a flat feeling in that the Chancellor’s presentation hardly enthused backbenchers, let alone consumers. Only part of the reason for this feeling was that most of the package had already been spun over the previous few days (whatever happened to that pledge of abolishing spin?). It wasn’t due only to the Chancellor’s flat delivery. It was also partly a response to the Tory presentation being better than certainly I had expected.”
Or this:
“The [rescue] package therefore raised some fundamental questions about the Government’s competence in running a crisis economy. Its lack of action on the 10p raises the most fundamental questions about its moral purpose.”
And Field even ends with the observation that “the intellectual debate is moving towards the Tories”.
Now, it’s easy to dimiss this as typical of a Labour backbencher who’s been one of Gordon Brown’s most outspoken, party-internal detractors for years. But a little snippet from Ben Brogan’s latest blog post suggests that Field isn’t the only Labour MP with doubts about the so-called fiscal stimulus. He writes that “Ministers privately admit the chances of the rescue package working are less than 50pc”. The worry for Brown is that this doubt reflects continued uncertainty over both his leadership and the direction he’s taking the party. Watch this space.
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