Philip Hammond gave the first presentation at this Big Society event, and he admitted something that the Tories don’t admit too often. First, he attacked Gordon Brown for doubling the national debt. And then he added that, “unfortunately, we’re on a trajectory where the national debt will double again over the next few years.”
Hammond’s right to highlight this. The danger for a Tory government is that their attacks on Brown in 2010 could look hypocritical in 2015, when they would have presided over rising debt as well. The key thing is to pin the blame for this situation on Brown, and ask whether he can be trusted to keep it under some sort of control.
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