One of Gordon Brown’s favourite tricks is claiming he’s pursuing a particular agenda at the behest of a person/organisation above party politics. Hence those endless reviews: Stern on climate change, Wanless on health, Barker on housing – all with parameters set so tight that they were programmed to come out with what Brown thought. I’ll wager that in the Pre-Budget Report next Monday, we’ll hear the same – that this huge deficit (prob £60bn this year and £85bn for 09/10) will somehow be at the behest of the IMF and the world. So if the Tories oppose it, well, they are isolated because the whole wide world wants a fiscal stimulus.
Except the world doesn’t. The Tories should draw up their own list of national debt, of what each country is doing, and just for once refuse to accept Brown’s premises. The IMF collectively is not telling Britain to go further into debt. Nor did the G20 agree anything useful. (Clue’s in the name: twenty nations were only every going to sign up to a platitudinous communiqué). Brown is desperate to get a Tories v The World narrative going. Osborne is on trial this week – Iain Martin’s column calling for him to go echoes much Tory sentiment I have heard. Much will depend on his response and his ability to crush Brown’s myths and finally get on the offensive. He started well with the pound, but needs to keep the momentum going.
PS Funny how Barker’s housing review never once mentioned what is now painfully obvious – that the main force pushing house prices up was the mother of all credit bubbles, presided over by a government which wanted to pass off borrowed money for genuine prosperity. Not really Barker’s fault, as her remit was set so tightly. This housing review served to reinforce Brown’s message: that lack of supply of houses was the issue, that one day a Dear Leader would come to Britain and promise three million new homes. Plus the Tories, who oppose cementing over England’s green and pleasant, would be on the wrong side of the argument. It’s all so predictable.
Comments