Matthew Parris’s column in The Times today contains this excellent advice for the Tories:
“The Tory task is to move the angry inquiry forward from the geography of origin to the geography of recuperation. Which economies will heal first? Which fastest? And when chaos recedes and a weakened West picks itself up again, who will be shakiest on their legs? As we move into the new century’s second decade, will Britain have moved up or down the international economic league? If, as I believe, the answer is sharply down, the Tories must be merciless in pinning the collapse on the decade that went before; and on the man in charge of the economy throughout – the present Prime Minister.”
Labour’s whole strategy has been to internationalise this crisis, to stress that this is a global recession. This morning, Patrick Wintour quotes one minister as saying that “Gordon is completely on top of all this but we badly need to internationalise things. We are not quite treading water, but in a hiatus, waiting for Obama.” But if America and the world start to recover before Britain this strategy will be blown out of the water.
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