Oh Darling (update)

Further to my blog about the splits appearing between Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling does need updating. Now Jack Straw has appeared on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show and the interview is reported by the BBC thus:

"Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said Labour is best placed to see Britain through the current economic downturn.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that economic management under Labour would help the UK to "weather these storms".

He said Chancellor Alistair Darling did not speak out of turn saying economic conditions were the worst for 60 years."

As usual Jack Straw says nothing concrete here, but he does say it with great confidence, tinged with slight menace.

The article continues :

"Mr Straw likened Britain's current economic situation to an airliner passing through turbulence.

"The question for the country is who is better to take us through this turbulent period?" he said.

"Is it an experienced pilot and co-pilot in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, who have had the experience… or is it two people in David Cameron and George Osborne, who have had no experience of flying a large plane whatsoever.""

Maybe we would be better off with a pilot and co-pilot who wouldn't have steered a course straight to the heart of a storm in the first place. Maybe we would be better off with a pilot and co-pilot who aren't currently arguing over how bad the storm is and whether we should steer under or over the storm. Maybe we would be better off with a pilot and co-pilot who give some indication of competence rather than total ineptitude.

Jack Straw is then reported to have said:

""We talk to each other all the time, each of us talks for the other. I'm sorry about this, but we're not clones of each other, and we sometimes use different adverbs and adjectives.

"The message from Gordon, from Alistair, from colleagues like myself, has been the same: we've had a very good period of economic management and economic success which has, for sure, provided us with a really serious platform to weather these storms.""

Jack Straw then went on to say that black was white, light was dark etc.