Johnson’s dividing lines

Very interesting write-up in the Mirror today of a speech Alan Johnson is delivering in London today. The enthusiasm of the report suggests that the Mirror is very much open to Johnson replacing Brown.

The line of attack, though, is still very Brown. The Mirror reports that Johnson will say:

“It is telling that the Conservatives paid lip service to the importance of investing in public services during the good times. But now the recession has seen them revert to their default position of cutting public services at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society.”

The minister will warn that the country needed to wake up to the “hideous reality of austerity Conservatism” in which Mr Cameron’s party planned to hack billions of pounds from vital public services.

If Johnson can get Brown’s message over better than Brown himself, the message to Labour is obvious. It does, though, seem that Johnson is repeating Miliband’s mistake of last summer.