Is Labour being too offensive, Mr Osborne?

By David Beeson

The Opposition seems to have been terribly upset with Labour lately. George Osborne got really quite petulant the other day, following the Pre-Budget Report: “What we needed was a national economic plan,” he told us, “and what we got is an election manifesto.”

Pause a moment to picture the scene with a Tory government six months out from an election and eight points behind in the polls. Would they, unlike Alistair Darling, have launched financial proposals absolutely untainted by any thought of the possible electoral consequences? You can’t see it? Nor can I. My imagination may be lively but it’s not fantastical.

So why was poor old George so unhappy?

Well, perhaps it’s because on top of an opinion poll lead that’s been slipping badly in the last few weeks, he’s suddenly seen a party across the chamber that has rediscovered how to do politics as well as government.

Gordon Brown has been getting a lot of things right. Most significant has been his handling of the financial crisis, where in his dealings with the banks he’s actually played a leading role on the international stage. Generally, he’s been good at government. But when it comes to politics, he’s been woeful. Possibly the worst moment was all that dithering over whether to call a general election or not. He didn’t have to call one – he just had to make up his mind quickly and announce his decision. By letting things drag on for three weeks, he made himself look indecisive and frittered away the lead he then had. He’s never recovered. It was the worst kind of political ineptitude.

The Pre-Budget Report, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Political eptitude? Yes, I like that word. Alistair Darling has proved himself extremely ept. The government is hitting back with a PBR that put the Tories on the spot. Darling showed that he had understood what seems to be beyond the opposition: cutting spending now will kill off a recovery that has barely started, or hasn’t started at all. We have to be ready to start cutting, we have to be prepared to draw down debt, but not yet – only once the economy is back in growth, and securely so.

The Tories can only reply that they want to cut now, without explaining how they’ll avoid plunging us back into recession. Meanwhile, despite all their talk about balancing the books, they want to make some colossal hand outs to the top 2% of the wealthiest people in this country. Those happen to be the very people who have been pouring money into the Tory Party. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s best calculated to make the Party look fit to govern in the interests of the whole nation.

No wonder Osborne is unhappy and lashing out. He knows he’s got a fight on his hands. Why, Labour’s even been picking up council by-election wins, including the Wyre Forest win against the Tories. It’s only a straw in the wind, but the direction of the wind is making Conservatives uncomfortable.

You can see how terribly offensive Labour’s behaviour must seem to George and his mates. My view? It couldn’t be happening a more deserving bunch of people.

Keep it up, Alistair.

Afterthought:
Osborne also pointed out that there had been genuinely great Labour Chancellors in the past, such as Stafford Cripps. He was a giant, it seems, that even Conservatives could admire, unlike the present incumbent.

But here’s Winston Churchill, then leader of the Opposition, responding to Stafford Cripps’s 1950 Budget (from Hansard, 24 April 1950):

“During the last five years the Socialist Government have spent or are spending more than £19,000 million. The Estimates for the year now before us amount to nearly £4,000 million.”

He denounces “these colossal figures which mark the most amazing dissipation of national resources on record in any civilised community of our size”. And here are some words that should remind us of Cameron and Osborne today: Churchill refers to a future that has “been mortgaged in every possible way”.

Incidentally, back in 1950 national debt was about three times higher as a proportion of GDP than it is today.

I can’t imagine that Alistair Darling is worried by Osborne’s comments. But if he is, he can comfort himself with the thought that in few decades he too may be transformed in Tory minds into an outstanding holder of his office. Here we go – Hansard 2069, some Tory Financial spokesperson, firmly rooted on the Opposition benches:

“Madam Speaker, on this side of the House we have the generosity to recognise the achievements of the past, even by our adversaries. I think back to the giants who have held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer from within the ranks of the Labour Party – men like Gordon Brown or his successor Alistair Darling. These were men of true stature. Compared to them, today’s incumbents are intellectual pygmies.”

That’s the way it is with the Tories. They eventually get round to understanding the need to line up with what their opponents have been telling them for ages. Just a few decades late.