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Less than a year ago "cuts" was still the four-letter word of British politics. Who wanted to be a cold, axe-brandishing destroyer of local services, dismal calculator of the cost of everything and value of not very much?
Labour prided itself on having created a political argument that snookered the Conservatives on their old claims to cut spending: a folk memory of those Spare Us the Cutter 1980s protests against the Thatcherite squeeze.
Even the shadow chancellor, a natural wielder of corsets (of the spending sort), gave in and signed up to support Labour's taxpayer largesse.
I remember asking George Osborne why, when the recession first struck, he did not move to change a position most Conservatives naturally abhorred. "Because I want us to win the election," he replied flatly.
A totemic pledge to match government spending was well established as a vital component of the "New" Conservatism.
All that is dust and recession-rubble now. David Cameron is threatening such cuts, we know not yet what they are, but they shall be the terror of the earth. Alistair Darling is also promising hard times ahead and unpleasant "tough choices", just not as soon.
It is to my memory the only election the incumbent has approached announcing an income-tax hike to take effect just before the predicted polling date and medium-term spending cuts, matched by an Opposition exceeding it in blood, sweat and tears by promising to cut earlier and faster and not to lower taxes.
Anyone thinking that this is a topsy- turvy political world, since greater restraint before the recession and a more consistent pattern of spending by the Government would certainly have left a bigger war chest for difficult times, would surely be right.
If Gordon Brown was short-sighted there, Messrs Cameron and Osborne look a bit callow for following the Blairite model so faithfully that they had no contingency either for a changed situation.
I mentioned this recently in a debate with Michael Gove, who was explaining that his boss stuck to controversial health and international development commitments "because he doesn't break his word".
This struck me as odd given that Mr Cameron has done a humungous volte- face on spending. Mr Gove furrowed his considerable brow. "Well he didn't like doing it," he said.
In recessionary times, money does not become, à la Simply Red on the early 1980s doldrums, "too tight to mention": it becomes the centre of debate and the carrier of wider messages.
So Mr Cameron has picked up on the fury of voters about MPs' expenses, as symbolic of a mood of punitive dislike of the rich and privileged. Alan Duncan has been sent off to prisons - in a demotion entirely calculated to show the public sacrifice of a Cavalier to the Roundhead majority.
The impending assault on subsidised food and drink at Westminster is mocked by Labour as not addressing the scale of the national problem.
The Tory leader is acutely sensitive to how cross the public feels with the political class.
He intends to match bold talk of cuts with symbolic sacrifices close to home, rather as the royal family used less bath water during the War. It's not the saving that counts here but the story.
Mr Darling's competing message, after a summer of Labour infighting on the approach, is that there be belt-tightening, but not so quickly and more judiciously under Labour - and that cutting too early will impede recovery. He has some succour this week in a report heralding an early end to the slump.
What Mr Darling lacks is clarity about what his "medium-term tough choices" amount to and how deep the misery will be.
He has won a major battle with some hardliner Brownites about the necessity of acknowledging the need for serious economies - in the unlikely event he will be Chancellor to implement them.
Alas, Labour's "values", which he cited as his guideline, are, after all, a muddy and rather shopsoiled commodity these days.
The New Thrift is thus left to vague commitment to flog off some assets - raising the Royal Mail argument yet again - and another efficiency drive. The Chancellor sounded like a man who was required to call a spade a digging implement.
In fairness, he is picking up the pieces for a PM who allowed the impression to flourish before the recess that the Government would continue spending willy-nilly.
Mr Brown then deployed the dubious figure of 500,000 jobs "saved" by his recession-busting actions, which his Chancellor has been sensible enough to banish from further use.
Mr Brown has never sounded comfortable in the argument against the Conservatives, since the old dividing line on "Labour spends/Tories cut" blurred.
Conservative spending plans do need spelling out, if only to dispel the impression that Dave has chronic Oppositionitis - a tendency to suggest that he will spend on pupil premiums to transform schools for the poor, beef up defence outlay to help the troops, or the next big thing, without seriously intending to follow through.
Note that he used the word "leadership" repeatedly in a BBC interview yesterday: a daring move to wrest the title from Mr Brown so that the election becomes a mere confirmation of the shift of power away from Labour.
That is smart politics but it does mean that his studied vagueness on the areas and scale of cuts looks out of step with his jutted-jaw rhetoric of responsibility beginning at the top.
Reality cannot be evaded for ever. UK plc is badly overspent: who doesn't know it?
It may have been in a good cause of shortening the slump, as Labour claims, or the result of wanton Brownite extravagance, as the Tories cry or, more likely in real life, a bit of both.
Either way, the next government is going to hurt in a number of unpleasant places.
Both parties are now beginning to share that inconvenient truth with the voters - just not fast enough.
Reader views (4)
we've already had tory cuts -thanks to Boris- 5% police officer cuts
- John P Reid, london, 09/09/2009 20:28
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Not sure I'm living in the same UK as others.. do you too know any of those elites?. For the Majority of folks who have seen decades of cuts.. job losses in manafacturing industries and bad governments it will not be news and just history repeating itself with the same 2 party recycling politics we've had for decades . well I'm voting UKip this time around... Yes because I wont vote for Labour or Tory . NO new kind of fair politics or voting systems to be gained here or the Liberals who i've seen in areas where they have seats and UKip seems like the ony main stream party left to choose from ...to be cnt'd
- Wherestheinterest, Kent.UK, 09/09/2009 17:07
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It's a no-brainer, Anne. Even profligate chavs understand that our economy is up the spout. And I suspect, too, they realise that the Government will, ultimately, have to show us their cuts (just cannot wait for the creative spin they'll put on it) before Dave tips his hand.
Cameron needs to hang tight - he has the smart cards, and if you're as bright as I think you are, you'll (eventally) be tipping a Tory landslide.
- Ted, London, 09/09/2009 13:14
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Any CUTS in MPs wages by chance?
- Glen, Huddersfield UK, 09/09/2009 13:01
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