When George Osborne went to meet Alistair Darling today, I wondered who had been lulled into whose trap. Both sides would want to be seen as the first actor here, being the first to extend the olive branch and rise above party politics etc etc etc. Yet when Osborne came out of the Treasury he left no doubt whose idea it was. “I am very grateful to Alistair Darling for agreeing to meet me and we had an extremely constructive meeting,” he said. Code: I called the shots here. And thing would be a lot better if I was making a daily trip up the Treasury stairs.
The BBC is running on Cameron’s offer of bipartisanship, even repeating uncritically his nonsensical offer that “we cannot allow what happened in America to happen here”. But hey it’s now the Tory’s turn to get away with nonsense. So all told, another very good day for Osborne – he has managed to ride the wave, rather than be swept away by it.
The price the Tories have paid is losing the ability to criticise Brown – but today, at least, it was a worthwhile trade. Plus with the BBC featuring a great, three-minute package on Tory school reform it seems that Cameron has salvaged what could have been a wipe-out conference.
Comments