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Gordon Brown and his ministers seem to have adopted the Goebbels principle of propaganda, hoping that the more often they repeat an allegation, the more likely a gullible public is to believe it. Over the past month they have repeatedly accused the Conservatives and David Cameron of adopting a "do nothing" approach to the recession, in the hope that Cameron can be made out to be heartless and uncaring. James Purnell's interviews on the Today Programme and 5 Live this morning were classic examples of the genre. Goebbels would have nodded approvingly.
Ostensibly Purnell was appearing on the programmes to plug government schemes to help people with mortgage arrears, yet he spent most of the time available in both interviews trying to assert that the Conservatives would do nothing and let people wallow in misery. This really is the politics of the gutter, especially when it is so transparently untrue.
This lunchtime David Cameron hit back with his latest initiative to help those affected by the recession – savers. He wants to cut the tax burden for savers and pensioners, who have suffered from sharp cuts in interest rates in recent months.
This comes on top of announcements on a council tax freeze, a temporary abolition of stamp duty, a NI cut of 1% for companies with fewer than five staff, a £2.6bn job creation package, cutting corporation tax to 25p, a VAT holiday for small businesses ... I could go on. This doesn't exactly strike me as a "do nothing" policy. But there is one policy which the Conservatives have been urging the government to adopt for several months, and which it has consistently refused to do. And that is to pledge a £50bn loan guarantee scheme for businesses who cannot borrow money or get an overdraft from banks.
Liquidity and cashflow are the two vital organs of any business. Without them it is impossible to run a business. I wouldn't expect ministers to understand this, seeing as only five out of 350 Labour MPs have actually ever run a business. Yet it now seems as though the government has finally realised that a national loan guarantee scheme is the only way of getting credit flowing again and getting banks to lend to small businesses.
Next time Gordon Brown and his colleagues accuse the Conservatives of doing nothing I hope the Tories will be rather more forthright in their response. Cameron showed on the Today programme this morning that he is more than capable of it. More please.
But if you are going to attack, you need to have people alongside you who are capable of attacking. Over Christmas there have been further reports that Cameron is considering asking Ken Clarke to join the shadow cabinet. The Sunday Telegraph has speculated that he is being lined up to shadow Peter Mandelson. A ConservativeHome survey of Tory members showed that 72% of Tories want David Davis back in Cameron's top team too. If those two couldn't take the fight to the government, it's difficult to think who could. But not everyone shares that view. Andrew Pierce quoted a Tory donor and a shadow cabinet member questioning whether Clarke could be relied upon. These dinosaurs should be ignored. Now is the time for the big beasts to come to the aid of the party. The next 18 months will be full of the political equivalent of bare knuckle fighting. The time for subtlety is long gone.
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