Credibility Crunch

The Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank, has suddenly discovered what all those nasty Keynesians were preaching two years ago; namely that the economy's structural deficit will probably not be eliminated by the end of the present parliament, and the country's borrowing will very likely have risen. Of course, we all know that this is the fault of the last Labour administration, the Euro-wogs, the shirkers, the Olympics, the weather, the Queen and the cancer patients; but even Conservative MPs have to offer their constituents something more than scapegoats now and again. The Treasury has responded in much the same fashion as the Deputy Conservative leadership responded to the Lords reform fiasco, by saying that of course the centrepiece of its entire policy never really mattered awfully in the first place, and that it cannot quite understand why everyone is making so much fuss. Nevertheless, it seems that, even in the Not Particularly Bright Party, Daddy's money and a certain smirking sebacity will only get you so far.