"Difficult decisions"

'no-one yet comprehends just how tough the next five years will be. For obvious reasons: we have not experienced anything like it in our lifetimes. We have been insulated from the full pain of the financial/economic crisis so far by unprecedented low interest rates and by the bank bail-outs. At some point, the anaesthetic will wear off and we will face a period of austerity that may well make the ruling party so unpopular that it effectively becomes unelectable for decades. There will be strikes; there will be stagnation; there will probably be a double dip of some variety. But this time the pain will be unmistakeably imposed by the politicians.

Tonight in the final television debate, my bet is that the most-used phrase from each of the party leaders (and particularly Brown) will be “difficult decisions”. But I wonder how much any of them understand just how difficult those decisions will be.'

The Telegraph's Edmund Conway has written an excellent piece that should be required reading by all before tonight's BBC leaders' debate. I wonder if the moderator David Dimbleby will press all of the three leaders for real figures or even just an appreciation of the scale of the problems? Somehow I doubt that he will press Gordon Brown too hard, not on previous David Dimbleby evidence...