Gordon Brown’s nonsensical argument in yesterday’s Mirror has been comprehensively answered and demolished by George Osborne, writing in today’s Times.
Osborne acknowledges that a Conservative government will indeed make cuts, as will a Labour government, too, should the British electorate feel inclined to return one.
The argument, says Osborne is not between “cuts” and “investment”; it is between honesty and dishonesty:
We should have the confidence to tell the public the truth that Britain faces a debt crisis; that existing plans show that real spending will have to be cut, whoever is elected; and that the bills of rising unemployment and the huge interest costs of a soaring national debt mean that many government departments will face budget cuts. These are statements of fact and to deny them invites ridicule.
Osborne is of course entirely right. Voters are sick of being treated as children. They know that, whoever wins, the national belt will have to be tightened. The Prime Minister deludes himself if he thinks that they will vote for a party that denies them the truth and promises them fool’s gold.
I strongly urge you to read Osborne’s article; it sets out very clearly the real dividing lines between the parties.
If Gordon Brown truly did wish to “address his weaknesses”, as promised in his 
Peter Mandelson has given an interview to the 
Welsh Questions today, and the return of Peter Hain to the dispatch box as Secretary of State.
The hesitancy that has been the principal cause of Gordon Brown’s downfall has infected the rest of the Parliamentary Labour party. At a meeting in the House today, they thumped the desks and gave a further reprieve to the man who has just presided over the greatest defeat in the party’s history.
