It’s a big day for George Osborne. The Shadow Chancellor is using his new platform at Demos — the think-tank which is credited with much of the brainwork behind the initial New Labour project, but which is now turning to the Tories as well as to the Purnellite wing of the Labour party — to deliver a speech on progressive politics. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but the snippets which have been published in the papers make it seem like a significant moment in Project Cameron: when the Tories extrapolate their attacks on Brown’s fiscal legacy further, and perhaps more resonantly, than they have done before. Here’s a key passage, to give you the idea:
“…there is nothing progressive about out-of-control spending that the poorest end up having to pay for, and nothing fair about huge national debts that future generations are left having to pay for. And it is … fiscal responsibility allied to a passionate belief in public service reform — particularly in education — which is the only progressive route out of this debt crisis.
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