The "Tory cuts" narrative

Gordon Brown and the BBC are eager to spread fear about "Tory cuts" and this will be the main attack in the run up to the next general election. So it was with little surprise that I read that:

"A comprehensive spending review was due this summer. Gordon Brown has quietly told Alistair Darling to scrap it."

As the Spectator's James Forsyth writes:

"Rawnsley reports that the review is being postponed because it would reveal that the state of the public finances dictates that there will have to be huge spending cuts whoever wins the next election. If the government has to admit this, Brown’s Tory cuts attacks will lose its force.

At the moment when Labour politicians appear on TV and radio they keep asking what the Tories would cut. The media should respond by asking them what they would cut. Indeed, Darling has already said that 80 percent of the fiscal tightening will come through spending cuts. The idea that only the Tories will cut public spending is risible."

Of course the BBC will not ask such impertinent questions of their friends in the Labour party; "the narrative" is nasty "Tory cuts" by the "nasty party" as contrasted with "the saviour of the world" doing his best to save the UK economy - and nothing will divert the BBC from pushing this line.