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How depressed are you feeling? I only ask since Hard Times is required reading these days and it's inflation fears for breakfast, credit crunch for lunch and doom for dinner. Goodbye "economic uncertainty", hello definite hardship.
The Bank of England's warning that inflation is now at well over three per cent and rising piles pressure on the Government's claim that Britain is better placed to survive the squalls than others.
Over at the Treasury, they insist that the fundamentals remain remarkably good, given the global pressures. Mervyn King's open letter - "Oops, we missed the inflation target" - tells a different story. Britain is now beginning to face the same price rises on essentials as the euro zone. One thing we will definitely be spared is any more of those speeches from Gordon Brown boasting about the uniquely benign conditions he bequeathed as Chancellor because many of them are evaporating. Watch the unemployment figures for the statistic ministers fear is edging up - it is the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, after interest rate rises, low consumer confidence and inflation.
Still, life and politics go on - just in less propitious circumstances. We have come to take for granted the Nice decade, formally Non Inflationary Continuous Expansion but a good summation of the general outlook of optimism. One of the hallmarks of the period since 1997 was that it was, in every sense, expansive. Politicians could syphon off huge sums of money for their pet projects, from the New Deal, which didn't deliver much on welfare reform, to Sure Start, which delivered marginal improvements to the chances of poor families but was untargeted and sprawling. No one was really counting - or if they did, their criticisms failed to make much of a dent.
Wellbeing isn't just a matter of what is on the balance sheet but about mood and approach. Mr Brown should be the perfect austerity leader - a Stafford Cripps for the new century. Instead, he has become the figure who is harvesting the blame for the decline in public confidence.
When the first distant thunder about global economic uncertainty pealed, I had lunch with an old friend and financial backer of the PM who was little short of jubilant at this turn of events. "This is Gordon's moment," he said. "Cameron is the kind of up-beat young guy you give a lot of leeway to when times are good but you wouldn't trust in charge when the going gets rough. Gordon will be the figure people trust in a crisis."
Yes, well. Mr Brown's allies always underestimated how much his own highspending record after the first New Labour term and boasts that he had effectively suspended the economic cycle would return to haunt him in changed circumstances.
He compounded the impression that he is prone to dithering between choices and unable to make up his mind (nonelection), and prone to sudden screeching reversals (10p tax), which have all but destroyed his reputation as a bankable figure.
Of course the slump in his personal shares is not only to do with the economic chill: there is a much broader concern, spreading even among former supporters, that he is dated, tired and unable to communicate reassurance.
One civil servant who has worked with both jokes that Mr Blair was brilliant at doing just that, adding, "Though he often hadn't the foggiest idea of what he was being reassuring about", whereas his successor "never leaves you feeling any better" for him having appeared on the screen.
The gloom 'n' doom scenario is not much help to young pretenders either. The prospect of taking over the Labour leadership with the party in internecine mood and externally determined difficulties to contend with is another reason why there is no serious challenge to the PM.
The Tories are not exempt from their own tests in altered circumstances. David Cameron, remember, ran as the "sunny uplands" leader damning Labour as the party which had grown stentorian and bleak in office. It fell to his shadow chancellor George Osborne to sound the notes of prudence and stem the perpetual thirst for tax cuts.
These days, as confidence about general prosperity recedes, Mr Cameron can sometimes sounds a bit uncertain on which way he now wants his pitch for power to go. In a fierce speech and Standard article on Monday, he claimed there was no essential contradiction between green politics and the business case, and derided Mr Brown's support for an expanded Heathrow as a bit of political positioning. It might well be partly that - though it is also the job of governments not to fudge important infrastructural decisions indefinitely.
One might equally say that it is mere positioning (and a stretch of credibility) to say that no damage will ensue to London if airport capacity does not expand. If Cameron has really decided to rule out a bigger Heathrow under a Tory government, then it would be more direct and convincing simply to say so. Is his argument against the expansion of Heathrow because it is environmentally damaging - and thus that he opposes any airport expansion on green principles? Or that Heathow is the wrong place to expand, in which case where does he want it?
As their own chief strategist concedes, the Tories do need to develop a reputation for reliability. There will also come a time when they will be pushed much harder on the "how" questions - not least on the troublesome matter of energy supply and national security - than they have been in Labour's doldrums.
To clinch a resounding victory on solid foundation, then, Mr Cameron will have to ground some of his own choices more firmly. The commitment to renewables as a main energy source, for instance, puts him on a less than solid ground in unpredictable times. Citing Germany as an example of a major economy which has embraced wind and solar power without increasing its nuclear capacity is odd, since the well known downside is its slavish dependency on Russia for oil and gas, which no British government would want to copy, given our virtual Cold War with Moscow.
Certainly, Mr Brown has the odds heavily against him - and widening. "The worse, the better," said cynical old Lenin. Messrs Cameron and Osborne might be inclined to agree, so long as Mr Brown is the one at the sharp end of public sector pay demands, stagflation and the rest of Pandora's box. When the question shifts in earnest to what the alternative will look like and why voters should feel confident that change at the helm will give them leadership in times of trouble, they need to be ready to show he can do the tough stuff, too.
Reader views (1)
Whatever you do never ever address the fundamental choices that are at stake and never look deeply into the void of Labour integrity - perhaps a refresh re the lies of the Government will help you put a human face on this absolutely inhuman set of proposals
1. Air quality will be protected (yet this government is seeking an extension of its waiver for air quality for London from EU ahead of its desire to increase flights by 60,000 a year destroying quality of life)
2. Noise levels will not increase (this is a triple deception - the area is drawn smaller but the population effected will rise. The noise regime around Heathrow is not considered independently of total noise for ALL airports-this is why the court ruling re night flights was thrown out-the level of noise will not increase above 57DB - again this is an average and quiet aircraft simply don't exist and will not be built for 20-30 years)
3. The expansion will in the words of a government department lead to 'increased morbidity'
It's shocking when our European neighbours have built purpose-built units away from human population density you would imply 'the little people' do not matter let's all die younger and have asthma for our kids so long as Heathrow expands - disgraceful spin and misdirection of the evidence.
- Christian Ball, London, UK, 18/06/2008 13:14
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