Labour attack fails to hit home

From the start, Labour’s attack on second jobs was a spiteful bit of gutter politics, a gratuitous assault on the personal financial arrangements of Conservative members, completely unrelated to the real issues thrown up by the expenses scandal and wholly of a piece with the grubby, contemptible way this government goes about its business. At the same time, albeit unwittingly, it did ask the right questions of the Tories, effectively inviting them to demonstrate their appetite for power. Had the conservatives been at all unserious about power, this argument would have found them out. Between them the shadow Cabinet are sacrificing hundreds of thousands of pounds in outside earnings. The slightest doubt on their part about the prospect of winning the election and this sacrifice does not get made.

A party that thinks it is destined for opposition toughs this one out, or at the very least makes much more of a fist of it. And so Labour were hoping for more resistance from the Tories, hoping to drag this out, but Cameron simply refused to play ball. At a stroke, he identified the weakness and neutralised it, turning it into the positives of firm leadership and seriousness of purpose by declaring in his press conference yesterday morning that all shadow cabinet members are to give up outside interests by December. This really was textbook stuff from the young Tory leader, leaving Labour nowhere left to go on the issue. When the most memorable phrase of the day was Cameron’s riff about a ‘dishonest thread running through this government’, you know the Tories have had another good day. Though the issue did have the potential to play badly for the conservatives, throwing up unwelcome headlines about lucrative outside interests at a time when the connection between money and politics is the most toxic issue out there, I am not sure the issue resonated that deeply. For me, it is interesting primarily for what it says about Labour’s mindset. What it reveals is a party with no sense of higher purpose, no elevating mission, just the old antagonisms, the bitter, vicious old tribal hatreds.

Above all, they have failed to learn the lesson of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election campaign, when the risible ‘Tory Toffs’ motif completely failed to resonate with voters and left labour looking for all the world a party without an argument, fundamentally unserious, engaging in the worst kind of juvenilia. Labour have been trying to paint Cameron as a 'toff' since the early days of his leadership, seemingly oblivious to the fact that, outside a few trusty Northern redoubts, it just does not play. People do not care. All it does is show up Labour’s worst prejudices, and it is a pretty unedifying sight. It is dismal, desperate stuff from a Labour Party with nothing left to say, no positive program, just stunts, slurs and smears.

It has been clear for some time that Labour has been following a core vote strategy. These sorts of signals play disastrously to the markets, the business community and the commentariat and for Labour to have so unapologetically – defiantly, even – signalled its abandonment of this constituency marks one of the real turning points in the life of this government. To suggest that Labour no longer cares if the business community, the markets and elite opinion more generally turns against them, as one unnamed minister did in the Sunday Times this weekend, marks the real end point of New Labour. The earliest phase of the New Labour project, from 1994-1997, was all about reassuring the business community, the markets and the financial press that Labour could be trusted on the economy. Well, with this series of announcements Labour has fully regressed to its pre-1997 psychology. None of this is designed to appeal to the aspirational classes. This is designed solely to spread fear among those reliant on Labour largesse. It is the mirror image of the Tories’ failed 2001 and 2005 campaigns, and an echo of Labour’s pre-1997 past.

So expect no more glad, confident mornings at Number 10 or Labour Party HQ. This is no longer the outward looking, aspirational, election-winning party of Tony Blair. This is the Labour Party of the Celtic fringe, the embittered, bewildered Party of the Northern enclaves. The angry party that repels Southern voters. And so we are back to dividing lines. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls love dividing lines. Unfortunately for them, of all the big contrasts, the one that resonates most is not one that plays to Labour’s advantage. The big dividing line in British politics is the developing one between a Tory Party looking beyond its natural constituencies, wrestling with the thorny issues around its troubled relationship with the North and working overtime to repair damage and rebuild trust, and a Labour party retreating into its heartlands, pointing up all the old divides, clinging to all the old antagonisms, indulging the worst instincts of its base and signalling its contempt for the opinions of the business and financial elites while embarked on a ruinous program of borrowing and spending. The long and the short of it is that Labour is fast turning back into the party the country rejected in 1979, 1983, 1987 and again in 1992. Despite Tom Harris' valiant attempt to plant the seeds of doubt in Tory minds, it is a psychology and a strategy that failed Labour prior to 1997 and it will fail them again in 2010.

Cameron on Civil Liberties

One of the most shaming aspects of Labour's record in office is its vicious decade-long assault on our freedom. In response, David Cameron will today make a speech outlining the Conservative Party’s thinking on the issue. Details are sketchy, but some of it, at least, we are already familiar with. The centrepiece is the proposed Bill of Rights. Opinion is divided on the issue of whether or not a Bill of Rights is the appropriate mechanism. My view is that we need an instrument that embeds our freedoms in a wider constitutional framework. Whatever the precise mechanism, it is clear that the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty alone is no longer up to the job. The old constitutional settlement has simply become too unstable. Elements in the mix have become dangerously unbalanced, with far too much power concentrated in the executive. The most supine parliament in living memory has proved incapable of holding the executive to account, resulting in a raft of poorly drafted, ill-conceived legislation.

In part, the problem has been a succession of truly awful Home Secretaries. Lacking all historical awareness and understanding, oblivious to the delicate balance of freedoms and responsibilities that hold our system together, they have indulged the worst instincts of the Home Office. Between them, they have showed complete disregard for constitutional niceties, and in what amounted to a constitutional outrage allowed calculations of narrow party advantage to ride roughshod over longstanding constitutional and parliamentary protocols. None of this would have been possible, however, had these protocols been more clearly specified, the workings of our constitution been fully elaborated, and the limits to executive power more clearly spelled out. And so the conservatives need to give real thought to a wider package of constitutional reform.

Alongside proposals for a Bill of Rights, of course, there is also the commitment to abandon the costly and unnecessary ID card scheme, itself an important symbolic move, emblematic as it is of Labour’s wrongheaded approach to issues of security, but beyond this and vague noises about the repeal of some of the worst excesses of Labour’s anti-terror legislation, Tory proposals remain underspecified. Indeed, it is the Liberal Democrats who have made much of the running on civil liberties. Chris Huhne’s Freedom Bill remains the most conspicuous statement of intent by any of the main parties on the issue.

In view of Huhne’s contemptible support for the ban on Geert Wilders, however, there remain very real questions about the depth of the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to some aspects of the civil liberties agenda, in particular to the principle of free speech. Given the very real erosion of this fundamental right, there is no longer room for equivocation or ambivalence on this issue. I would like to see much more robust protection for free speech included in the bill, in particular real consideration given to repeal of the legislation outlawing incitement to religious hatred. That said, Huhne’s set of proposals is very nearly there. An excellent start, and the closest any of the parties has yet come to elaborating a set of proposals that genuinely reflect the concerns of civil liberties advocates.

This has left Chris Grayling struggling to catch up. Given the centrality of the Home Office to much of what Cameron will want to achieve in his first term, this situation cannot continue. There is a clear conservative case for constitutional renewal and reform. It is different from the one being made in the liberal press and it needs to be laid before the British people with vigour and energy. The Conservatives have a tireless advocate for civil liberties in David Davis, it is a pity Cameron cannot find his way to restoring Davis to the front bench.

Personality aside, it is crucial that the argument for civil liberties is not lost sight of in the lead up to the election. Issues around the economy and public spending have a tendency to crowd out arguments around civil liberties, especially in a downturn, relegating them to mere marginalia. Today's speech is a clear statement of intent from David Cameron that the Tories remain committed to rolling back Labour's ugly assault on our freedom. The defining feature of the New Labour landscape is a culture of petty cruelty and vindictiveness. A decade of it has left the public sphere horribly coarsened and disfigured. Cameron's speech today will go some way towards unwinding Labour's assault on our values and restoring some integrity to our constitutional settlement. It is also a reminder that there is more than one dividing line in this upcoming election. Quite apart from the distinction between a Conservative Party prepared to tell you the hard truth about public spending and a Labour Party determined to cover it up, the other big contrast is between a Labour Party pursuing an ugly authoritarian agenda and a Conservative Party committed to freedom. For me, Labour is simply on the wrong side of the argument on all of the big issues. Cameron's speech today is another emphatic demonstration of that.

*UPDATE: ConservativeHome has key passages from the speech here
**UPDATE: Full text here

Why Cameron should hold his nerve

The Tories are taking a terrible pounding over their decision to leave the centre-right grouping in the European parliament and there is evidence that the criticism has rattled the leadership. In interviews, Hague and Cameron have appeared at turns defensive, anxious and unsure of the line. Sensing blood, Labour’s attack machine has pounced. Though determined to paint the Tories as isolated and without influence on Europe and busy linking them with all manner of crackpots, loons and fringe elements, the argument is not really about Europe at all. Confident that it plays to their ‘Same Old Tories’ and ‘nasty party’ memes, Labour strategists have seized on the issue as part of their wider attempt to deconstruct Cameron’s modernising agenda and re-contaminate the Tory brand.

Worried that the Labour attack will resonate, fearful that it plays into all the old stereotypes, the Tories are keen to close down the argument. But need they be? I am not so sure. Guardian readers are no doubt appalled. In their minds, this confirms all their worst prejudices. But this is exactly what is wrong with the strategy. Like Brown’s ‘Tory cuts!’ jibe and the ‘Mr. 10%’ riff, this is small tent stuff. Shoring up the Euro-fanatic vote with scare stories about Ukrainian SS members, holocaust deniers and homophobes is not political outreach. While this stuff plays well in The Guardian and The Independent, outside the echo chamber of the liberal press I am not so sure. Though we have no way of gauging the impact on the opinion polls, just as the country is in the mood for spending reductions, it is in the mood for a more critical approach to European policy, and so the Tories should not be afraid of the argument. Brown’s last attempt at this sort of transparent political positioning backfired spectacularly, leaving the Labour leader looking slippery and dishonest. So the Tories might yet turn this to their advantage.

They will only turn this to their advantage, though, if they are prepared to confront the issue head on. That means making this move part of a wider reform argument. The Tories can do this in the knowledge that they are on the right side of that argument. The whole trend in today's politics is towards increased accountability and transparency. Arguments around localism, democratic renewal and reform resonate deeply with a public desirous of change. Of course, any argument that challenges the establishment view on Europe will meet with a robust response and that is just what we are seeing. The combined assault on the Tory position from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the big liberal blogs and the BBC is evidence of just how widespread and ingrained the consensus on Europe has become. Just yesterday, Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, accused the Tories of throwing away influence on Europe in favour of “ideological isolationism”.

Davey’s use of the term ‘ideological’ is a simple yet effective rhetorical device, conjuring images of wide-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth types. Notice how, by using the term pejoratively, he seeks to draw the ideological sting from the establishment view and present the federalist argument as a matter of simple common sense. These rhetorical sleights of hand are everywhere used instead of argument. The pro-European argument never gets beyond vague noises about the need to combat climate change and warnings that jobs and trade will suffer. Quite how and why all of this requires a bloated federal superstructure is never fully explained. It operates rather as something of a null hypothesis - a default position - assumed to be true as a matter of simple common sense and thereby rendered ideologically neutral. This insidious framing shapes discourse across the media. The assumptions underlying the conventional or establishment view are everywhere presented as unthreatening, non-ideological, safe.

This is a subtle and insidious form of indoctrination. The establishment view is no less ‘ideological’ than the Tory position and it needs to be confronted - and confronted with conviction. The Tories have to stop being so defensive on the issue. Despite the force of the attack on the Tory position, there are signs that the argument is moving their way. Just last week Nick Clegg moderated his tone on Europe greatly, sounding much less slavish than usual, and the more thoughtful Liberal Democrats are aware that they need to develop a much more critical pro-Europeanism than they have yet shown us. So it would be a great irony and a very great betrayal if, at the very moment the stifling consensus on Europe begins to fracture, the Tories failed to put themselves at the centre of the argument for fear of upsetting the pro-European press.

And so it goes on

We wondered how Mousavi and the demonstrators would react to Khamenei’s provocation. We now have our answer. Mousavi remains uncowed, at the head of the protests. The uneasy stand off having given way to extremes of violence and brutality, the regime is now facing a deep crisis of legitimacy. Any semblance of a wider purpose has long since dissipated. All that remains is the authoritarian instinct, the reflexive illiberalism, the ugly philosophy of unfreedom. And Iranians are rejecting it.

As this crisis unfolds on Youtube, in our email boxes and our twitter feeds, the pressure to tilt policy in favour of the protesters grows. The clamour on the neoconservative right for a stronger line grows louder and more intense by the day. Obama has so far rightly resisted it. The best course of action was always to maintain a studied neutrality and that remains the case. So far Obama’s cautious realism has been pitch perfect; his call on the Iranian government to “stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people” managing to signal coded support for the protestors, while maintaining enough studied ambiguity to prevent accusations of meddling. And it must continue.

Predictably, the siren voices urging intervention - so far confined to the outer reaches of the neoconservative fringe - are in danger of breaking out and infecting the wider discourse. Just last night, our very own Iain Dale joined the chorus, urging a much more robust line on the government. Inchoate and lacking definition, these calls reflect a heartfelt desire to do something, anything, in the face of vicious brutality and injustice. On that very human level, they are understandable – admirable, even - but they make for bad foreign policy. Contra the ideologues on the neoconservative fringe, it is the job of those tasked with steering America through this crisis to eschew universalising, moralising rhetoric in favour of the cold calculation of interests.

And that is just what Obama and his team are doing. Watching, waiting, viewing this through the prism of enduring American interests, not allowing policy to get caught up in the swirl of events. One thing the neoconservatives are determined to do is to make this about America, to place America at the centre of the narrative; their growing impatience with Western inaction a rage against the idea of American impotence. One thing they cannot abide is an America on the periphery. This is a familiar kind of solipsism, one to which a young republic is especially vulnerable, and it must be overcome. The desire to insert ourselves at the centre of every crisis must be resisted. In its place there needs to be a much more disciplined and focused response. We need a diplomacy that comes to terms with and acknowledges limits. Thankfully, mercifully, after the excesses of the Bush years, that is exactly what we are getting.

All Eyes on Mousavi

Pity Mr. Mousavi. With the Supreme Leader’s speech this morning, the crisis in Iran has now entered its most critical phase. Until now, opposition forces have stopped short of challenging the legitimacy of the Islamic regime. By declaring for Ahmadinejad, however, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei effectively upped the ante this morning, placing both his leadership and the authority of the Islamic Republic on the line. The question now is just how far the opposition, and Mr. Mousavi in particular, are prepared to go. He and they have a choice; accept Mr. Ahmadinejad as President or plunge into the unknown. It boils down to a simple test of nerves. This was a calculated provocation by the regime and the pressure on Mr. Mousavi now is immense. How he will respond is unclear.

What is clear is that a proud people, an ancient people, a magical civilisation, beaten by this brutal regime into submission, aching for an end to the indignities visited upon them, have finally said ‘Enough!’. And so the siren call at the centre of Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech must be resisted. The turn away from politics to spirituality, towards the consolations of irrationality, unreason, faith, is the very opposite of what the Iranian people need. They have sought comfort in the false certainties of religion for too long. They of all people know that, of all the great pathologies that swirl around the Middle East, this is the most disabling, the most wretched; the most deceitful and wicked of all the great lies. What they want and need now more than ever, above all else, is for their politics to work.

And so what the Iranian people must understand above everything is that this speech was a deeply hostile act - at once a defiant, menacing, thuggish, brutal and yet ultimately self-defeating piece of political positioning, effectively setting regime and people on a collision course. If they understand that, the way forward will become clear. As the regime gathers its forces and the opposition draws breath, the world watches and waits, not knowing which way events will turn. My fervent hope is that the Iranian people will reject the false certainties and failed dogmas of the past, stand up, and assume something like their full height as a people.

A Lament

Some interesting contrasts between the American and British blogospheres have emerged over the course of the last week. In particular on the issue of the disputed Iranian elections. With the fall out from the expenses scandal and the developing argument over public expenditure dominating the conversation on this side of the Atlantic, developments in Iran have generated almost no comment. The American blogosphere, by way of contrast, has seized upon the issue and taken up the cause of the protesters with some relish. Andrew Sullivan has excelled yet again, standing head and shoulders above any other blog or mainstream news source, his grasp of the complexities and ambiguities around the issue a constant source of fresh insight and inspiration. But alongside him, the other big American blogs – Instapundit, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Kos - have all weighed in, contributing to a spirited dialogue.

In contrast, the issue just has not seized the imagination of the British blogosphere in the same way. The big political blogs in Britain have had almost nothing to say on the issue. The always insightful Heresiarch has chipped in here, but he remains something of a lone voice. And so what struck me is just how insular and self-absorbed the British blogosphere has become when compared with the American. Of course, the two countries are at very different points in the electoral cycle: the American response shaped by a newly confident, outward-looking administration, keen to make its mark – ours by a beleaguered, bewildered government, looking for all the world a demoralised and discredited rabble.

But the different reaction also reflects the widely different interests of the two countries. Iran is very much a live foreign policy issue in America and one of the most intractable foreign policy problems for American planners, whereas the Foreign Office is much diminished these days. Though still counted among the three great offices of state, the truth, of course, is that Britain no longer has a foreign policy worthy of the name. There is very little room for manoeuvre or creative thinking in the sphere of foreign policy. Despite our pretensions, the days when Britain conducted a global policy are long gone - the last great gasp of foreign policy activism in Iraq having dampened any residual desire on the part of Britain’s elites to put ourselves at the centre of the world's trouble spots. And so the different reactions to this story in America and Britain are something of an indicator both of how deeply engaged the Americans remain globally and how, at the same time, our interests - and perhaps our horizons - have narrowed; the different treatment of this issue by the respective blogospheres playing very much to the Americans’ credit and our shame, leaving the Americans looking every inch the worldly sophisticates and Britain the insular, parochial cousin.

The Proper Role of The Speaker

It says something about modern politics when one is forced to defend liberalism against liberals. I blogged yesterday about how refreshing it was to hear a mainstream party leader make the case for old fashioned English liberalism. Well, it seems elements of Nick Clegg’s party are not quite on the same page. On the very same day, we find Liberal Democrat activist Kasch Wilder writing on Liberal Democrat Voice that “it is important, now more than ever, for Parliament to send a strong message that the diversity of our culture is the backbone of our society”. He makes this rather extraordinary claim during the course of an argument for the election of Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda as Speaker and it is evidence of some really rather muddled thinking. Issues around identity and the BNP are entirely separate from the much narrower issue of parliamentary reform. And yet somehow both he and Mr. Dhanda manage to conflate the two.

Reading Mr. Dhanda’s blog, it is clear that he simply hasn’t thought beyond New Labour’s failed identity politics and only really turns to the issue of accountability as an afterthought. In the main, he seems concerned with the absurd idea of uprooting Parliament and embarking on a tour of the regions. Alongside this, his proposals are for more of the failed identity politics that resulted in the election of two BNP MEPs. He bases his appeal around the conviction that “we need to change our personnel to reflect modern Britain”. So far, so much standard New Left fare, but we soon encounter something much more alarming. Later in the same paragraph we find the following:

“Parliament will not be representative of its racial, gender or class mix at any time in the next 100 years. The Speaker must actively encourage political parties to make changes, through law, to catalyse these changes over one or two terms, not 100 years.”

Quite astonishing. This is a form of radical identity politics that polarises opinion not just in the House, but across the country. It will politicise the Office of Speaker to an unprecedented and wholly unacceptable degree. This alone should disqualify him. It is clear that he has absolutely no conception of the proper role and function of the Speaker of the House. Quite apart from the obvious constitutional impropriety of pursuing such a radical agenda from the Chair, what Messrs Dhanda and Wilder do not seem to understand is that it is precisely this commitment to diversity above almost every other social policy goal that is at the root of so much of the current crisis. Strong societies are those centred around a set of shared values. Societies that cannot achieve agreement on basic values slide into conflict and worse, and so it is not diversity - ethnic, confessional, or ideological – that is the backbone of our society, but rather its opposite; a stable and enduring consensus around basic values.

Those values are best expressed in the centuries old tradition of English liberty: a robust liberalism, a jealous regard for freedom, a healthy scepticism, and a deep and abiding suspicion of the state. So the most important message our Parliament could send out now is that the backbone of our society is liberty, not diversity. Through all the waves of immigration, the dominant culture has remained robustly liberal. Immigrants have contributed many great things, much energy and entrepreneurship, but the one thing they have not improved upon is our basic cultural settlement, the basic framework of rights and freedoms, the basic set of principles at the centre of our tradition of liberty. Not a single, solitary contribution has improved upon that basic framework. And as if to underline the point, sections of the new immigrant populations are now actively seeking to undermine it. And they are helped in that agenda by just this kind of wrongheaded, ill-considered argument. The basic point that Mr. Dhanda has still not grasped is that It is precisely while he was busy playing identity politics that his constituents turned their backs on him and voted for the BNP. I would invite both Mr. Dhanda and Mr. Wilder to reflect on that. The last thing we need is some ghastly new symbolism. This is not a cosmetic exercise. We need a champion of liberty; a Speaker determined to hold the executive to account; a Speaker committed to the basic values that underpin our constitutional settlement - not another poster boy for New Labour’s diversity agenda.

A Man on a Mission?

I stumbled upon this video yesterday of Polly Toynbee interviewing Nick Clegg. In view of Clegg's increasingly impressive performance over the last few weeks, it got me thinking about the prospects for his newly energised leadership. Following Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell was always going to be a tough ask for a young MP with very little name recognition - and so it has proved. Much of the criticism that has swirled around Nick Clegg's leadership, though, is unfair. He was unfortunate to ascend to the leadership at a time when David Cameron was busy articulating a renewed liberal Toryism. The flurry of interest around the new Tory leader had a significant destabilising effect on Clegg's leadership and overshadowed what to many observers is now clear - that of the three most recent Liberal Democrat leaders, he is easily the most impressive figure.

In an age when people crave authenticity above all else, the Liberal Democrat leader seems a genuinely engaged and committed personality. Nick Clegg is a man who speaks with real passion and eloquence on a great many things, but above all on issues around civil liberties and freedom. Deeply schooled in political philosophy, one senses that this is a man guided by a clear set of principles. And the glaring distinction between a Liberal Democrat leader who is open, articulate and engaged and a Labour leader holed up in his bunker, paranoid, aloof and only ever appearing in front of hand-picked audiences, is one of the great contrasts in Westminster politics.

At a time when a clear statement of the argument for classical liberalism is sorely needed, he makes the case with great insight, passion and flair. His core philosophy fits seamlessly with much of the new Tory thinking around issues of localism and the renewal of democracy and so there is much for Conservatives to admire in Nick Clegg. When a liberal leader openly proclaims his anti-statism as well as his belief in localism and democratic renewal - all longstanding Tory themes - what is left of the old policy of equidistance? Clegg would doubtless reject the premise of the question, arguing instead, in an echo of the old refrain ‘neither right nor left, but out in front’, that the old categories have outlived their usefulness.

But on any objective measure, Clegg is closer to the Tories than he is Labour. In place of the vague, leftish social democracy of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy we find a considered, coherent, classical English liberalism at the core of Clegg’s philosophy. His instincts tend always towards decentralisation, rebalancing the constitution and devolving power away from the centre. So Nick Clegg is a man with whom Conservatives can do business. To Westminster insiders this is no great secret. There is broad agreement between the two front benches on many aspects of policy. Don’t expect the Liberal Democrat leader to shout about it too loudly though. Edge too close to Toryism and you frighten off disaffected Labour voters. But the prospect of Nick Clegg propping up a minority Labour administration is remote. It is inconceivable that the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg will be able to work with a minority Labour government for any length of time. The areas of disagreement are simply too great.

For him to maintain any sort of working relationship with the Tories, though, he will need to develop a more critical pro-Europeanism than he has yet showed us. He will be aware of the glaring contradiction between his avowal of transparency and accountability in the Westminster context on the one hand, and his party’s rather slavish devotion to all things European on the other. Exactly how he proposes to square his liberalism with the democratic deficit at the heart of EU decision making is not yet clear. But he will have to moderate his pro-Europeanism. Remember, the ramifications of the Westminster expenses scandal have not yet played themselves out. As the clamour for transparency and accountability works its way through our politics, the Liberal Democrats will find that they are simply on the wrong side of the argument on Europe. Pressure is growing for real reform and he will need to position himself carefully on the issue or suffer electorally. So expect a much more nuanced and considered approach to Europe Policy in the coming year than we have seen thus far. The upshot of all this is that if Clegg negotiates the next year successfully and all this plays out as I expect, we could be faced with the very real prospect of a historic realignment on the right, and that means Conservatives have less reason to fear a hung parliament than they think.

At last the Tories come out fighting

This blog has consistently argued that a Conservative Party prepared to tell you the hard truth about public spending versus a Labour Party determined to cover up the truth about inefficiency and waste in the public sector is a contrast that will really resonate. And boy does that argument look good today. Labour has got itself into a terrible bind on the spending issue. There really are only two ways out of this argument for them. One is to admit the lie, the other to double down and push the line even harder. Either option plays directly into the developing meme of Tory truth versus Labour lies. By embracing the argument of this blog and others that they should frame the debate in the terms of honesty versus dishonesty, rather than investment versus cuts, the Tories have laid a massive elephant trap for Labour.

Of course, the first isn’t a real option at all. Admit the lie? Cannot be done. So they are going to have to tough it out. The damage this will do to Labour credibility on the spending issue is incalculable. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, supposedly the two ‘towering intellects’* of this administration, are in danger of throwing away what little credibility on the economy Labour has left.

The problem Labour have is that the lie just doesn’t play. It doesn’t play in the blogosphere, it doesn’t play on TV, it doesn’t play in the mainstream newspapers or in the Dog and Duck. It doesn’t even play in The Guardian, consistently the most hawkish advocate of public spending of all the main papers. If Labour cannot find a way to make their argument on spending play, it is all over for them. Sitting here today, I simply cannot see how they do it. The sums just do not add up. If the Tories are prepared to push it hard enough, this will prove a very, very profitable line of attack for them indeed.

The next trick for the Tories is to use this developing meme to break through the stifling orthodoxy on public spending and build a base of support for their wider agenda. The Tories have to look beyond winning the election and start building a base of support for what are going to be some tough spending rounds. Otherwise, what support they have could erode very quickly indeed. Cuts in the abstract are one thing, real cuts working their way through into the real economy are a different proposition altogether. More on this developing argument later, for now let me just say that today is a very good day to be a Tory - a very good day indeed.

*Copyright © Polly Toynbee, circa 2007