Sky News at midnight had a review of tomorrow’s papers as usual, given by the Editor of the Mirror and the Assistant Editor of the Telegraph.
It seems the Times poll has the Tory lead down to 4% with 9% more thinking the Brown-Darling combo better at handling the recession than Cameron-Osborne. This in spite of the fact that Brown is largely to blame for Britain’s problems and despite the failure of his policies to date.
He has been running about the world like a dog chasing its own tail, blaming everybody but himself for Britain’s woes. Darling has presented a pathetic package of ineffective and hastily cobbled together budgetary measures for the purpose of headline grabbing rather than anything else. We have undergone the biggest devaluation since 1948 of over 25% against the dollar.
Some economic commentators think this is a good thing – and it would be if it led to an export-led recovery, as in 1992, for instance. But I wonder if that’s on the cards, given the state of British manufacturing and now of the financial sector as well. Added to which, the fall in the value of sterling gives the lie to Brown’s (and the media’s) oft repeated contention that Britain is just part of a global problem, none of which is Brown’s responsibility. Sterling’s fall is a sign that the world markets do not share the optimism of Brown, Labour, the BBC or the Murdoch media.
And what of the response to the situation of our two eminent journalists? No comment about the value of George Osborne’s analysis of the situation in general and the Darling mini-budget in particular. Instead we had comments about his voice and manner, that he “looks like someone who’s just lost a million and it didn’t matter…..” How very pertinent! Politics reduced to the level of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’!
And, on the day when the government has survived a vote by 4 votes in the Commons following the raid of Damian Green’s office, these two defenders of British freedom criticise the Tories and Lib Dems for ‘banging on’ about an issue which has ‘gone right over the heads of most people.’
Well maybe it has. Maybe these two really do reflect the state of public awareness and ‘thinking’ in Britain today. If so, we needn’t worry that the country is ‘going to Hell in a hand cart’ – it’s already there!
