On Channel Four News yesterday Krishnan Guru-Murthy challenged Vince Cable on the economy.
“Before the election you said to the Conservatives you’ve got to have a plan B. You’re now with them and saying there is no plan B and there shouldn’t be a plan B, despite this week’s terrible economic difficulty”.
This was the Secretary of State’s response:
“There is a plan A which is to deal with the deficit. It’s something we inherited, it’s a massive problem, it’s the biggest in the developed world. It’s been very tough, very difficult, we’ve had to deal with it and if we hadn’t dealt with it we would have found ourselves in the middle of a major financial crisis.”
At first hearing this may seem like a perfectly reasonable response from our Vince, the kind that has been trotted out by many representatives of the Coalition when faced with a similar accusation. But this is where the big problem is. Cable’s defence washed over me. It was the political equivalent of lift music. All I heard was la la la la as my mind drifted off.
Only 13% of Briton’s rate the economy as good and only the same amount are optimistic about its future. If the Coalition’s reasoning for the cuts becomes nothing more than background noise then the public’s willingness to believe that Government is making tough choices in order to avoid a more calamitous situation will quickly evaporate, and optimism about the future will continue to be low.
You don’t get credit for stopping something from happening unless people get a feeling for what the alternative would have looked like. Ministers should take credit for the disappearance of talk about the need of a possible IMF bail-out, while simultaneously describing what such a bail-out would mean in terms of cuts to services. The Government must continue to highlight the consequences of losing the confidence of the international financiers, using Greece and Ireland as an example.
As one of the few Conservatives in my friendship group I often get asked to justify this cut or that cut. It is only when I explain the consequences of not dealing with the deficit – and challenge my friends to think about what budgetary choices they would make – that their focus shifts from the micro to the macro. Every member of the Coalition must passionately respond to those who challenge the necessity of our economic policy in exactly the same way.
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Interesting blog Nick. However, as I said yesterday, I don’t think focusing on deficit reduction is enough. There is an urgent need to ask the questions – how are we going to grow and what kind of economy do we want to be? Arguably the debate has been too heavily focused on cuts and the deficit for too long.
Hi Dave. I complete agreed with your blog yesterday. The Coalition needs to put a lot of force behind communicating its growth strategy. I was talking more about how to respond when pushy commentators continuously challenge this cut or that cut.
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David S is totally right.
Growth is the only way to cut the deficit. If the economy doesn’t grow George Osborne will be standing up in March announcement another package of cuts. Just look at what’s happening in Ireland – how many emergency budgets have they had now?!
The reason the excuses are becoming white noise is a) people have heard it so often they’re tuning out, and b) a lot of people are starting to ask themselves whether there really is no alternative to paying twice for a banking crisis.