Cider, Darling, and the problems facing the Tories

By David Higgerson on Mar 28, 10 02:05 PM

Maybe Alistair Darling is a political genius after all. Faced with delivering a budget which would be either criticised for penalising the public with tax rises or attacked for not cutting the national deficit fast enough, the man with the dancing eyebrows always seemed to be on a hiding to nothing.

So the fact that the first thing anyone on the street will tell you about the budget is that there's a whopping increase in the price of a pint of cider probably counts as quite a clever victory.

What's even more surprising is the apparent inability of the Conservative Party to get the pubic wound up about the state of the economy.

This should be perfect election-winning territory for them, yet they seem to only be succeeding in getting annoyed that the public aren't listening.

On Saturday, David Cameron, dressed and acting like a disco dad desperate to show he could move like a young 'un, told a circle of supported in Milton Keynes that Gordon Brown had been dithering by not calling the election on Saturday morning.

To the best of my knowledge, there was never any suggestion Brown would announce the election date on Saturday. So either Cameron misread what was going on - a bad sign surely - or he was simply making things up to accuse Brown of dithering again.

Of course, the 'Brown the ditherer' attack line was very useful when the Tories were storming ahead in the polls, but for the Tories to dig it out again when they are now just narrowly ahead suggests they now believe their bigger lead was to do with Labour's failings rather than their campaigning.

So the very fact that the Tory leader found himself inventing a scenario so they could attack Brown, rather than pick apart a budget which was meant to be a lose-lose for Labour says a lot.

Why isn't the huge deficit in the national finances putting the fear of God up people? Why do opinion polls suggest more people trust Brown and Darling over Cameron and George Osborne to pull us out of recession when Brown and Darling were the men in charge when the crash happened? Why aren't people listening to the Tories more?

There are posters on every street corner and shadow ministers lined up to speak whenever and wherever they're needed to get the point across. But still the polls aren't opening up.

For me, the problem lies with the way the Tories think. Everything centres on attacking Labour, on responding to what Labour say rather than trying to set the agenda. The Tories did try to set the agenda in January with their draft manifesto. But even then they mucked that up by saying it was a work in progress. For work in progress read 'This is what we'll say we'll do unless you don't like it in which case we won't'.

In short, we know they don't like Labour but we still don't know what they stand for. Osborne claimed it was impossible for him to come up with a draft budget because he didn't have all the numbers. Is he honestly trying to tell us that, as shadow chancellor, he and his team couldn't have a decent stab at what they would do, based on the figures which are available? The Tories are quick enough to drag out figures when it suits - size of national debt, amount spent on income support and so on - but expect us to just trust them to come with a budget after we've placed a cross in the box?

On health, it's a similar picture. One minute, the Tories say they'll protect the NHS, the next they're promising to protect it but slash the red tape, but without saying how'll they'll slash the red tape.

With little over a month before the general election, the Tories are still winking at the electorate, flashing a smile and saying 'you can trust us.' But it isn't working. And that's why Darling was able to pull off a budget which people will remember just for the cider.