The Labour Party seemed remarkably pleased with themselves over the theft of George Osborne's economic policies - Gordon Brown, usually unaccustomed to such a clearly difficult facial contortion, could hardly stop smiling in the Commons today, as the Conservative Home graphic shows all too clearly. But it might be a little early for such celebration. Several commentators, including Newsnight's Michael Crick and the Spectator's Matthew D'Ancona (here on the Coffee House blog) are clear that today's announcement actually represents a shift in the batle of ideas, firmly in a Tory direction. For ten years the Tories seem to have been wallowing in a serious ideas vacuum; now, they find themselves setting the agenda. If such political dynamics really are with the Tories, then the future does indeed look bright; the future looks blue.
Conservative Home, by the way, has a wealth of good material on today's developments, as well as a comment about Rachel Sylvester's Telegraph article outlining the new civil war breaking out between the young Brown advisers.
George Osborne, by the way, gave a strong performance in the Commons, including a good line about the Prime Minister wanting the country to know his vision, but needing to ask the Tories what that vision is.
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6 comments:
Osbourne was very good in the Commons. I am still rather irritated over the blatent theft of Tory policies. However, I am glad to see that Labour have been reduced to stealing good Tory policies in an attempt to desperately claw back some popularity.
I feel that if it is a good idea, then why not use it? Surely the Tory policy makers who made the whole thing up should be very please? Well as pleased as you can be when the party in charge has nicked you key idea, arguably making it better...
That this was a stolen Tory policy is exactly what the government _want_ you to think. It just looks as though they have raised the inheritance tax threshold, when infact, they have not. Nothing has really changed at all - it remains at £300k. The 'allowance' has been combined for couples, and this was already possible anyway.
The whole thing is labour spin at its best.
Dizzy explains all here:
http://dizzythinks.net/2007/10/inheritance-tax-spin-unravels-in-hours.html
In response to Jeremy Paxman I do not think you could possibly argue that it is arguablly better now that Labour have got their theiving hands on it. I agree totally with marc Labour have disguised what is already possible into a policy that sounds good... even if it was stolen!
At the risk of increasing the number of conservative blogs, it looks as if it might be a good idea to put a link to the 'Dizzy Thinks' blog on the sidebar. Thanks, marc, for your reference. And,of course, futuretorypm, that mysterious but frequent commenter, continued thanks for engaging in the debate!
You're welcome GM.
Dizzy is a former work colleague of mine and I know he'll appreciate the link.
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