I’m still seething after Cameron’s speech on Friday. Coming in late, I won’t rant on redundantly except to add a couple of points:
1) Sometimes soundbites can bite you on the bum. Gideon Osborne on the Today programme on Friday managed to claim that a) it was time to question how the “house caught fire” and b) that Labour “didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining.” Now, I may not know much about housing, but I am unaware of how a lack of roof could cause a house to catch fire. This may sound a rather pedantic point, but it does seem that during a time of crisis all we are getting from the Tory front bench is pat phrases.
2) The Tories have chosen this moment because they judge the immediate crisis to be over. In the City maybe, but the rest of the country has barely begun to feel the after effects. It speaks volumes that politicians, and the Tories in particular, only judge it necessary to put on a show of unity for the City and not the rest of the country. It shows who they consider their true masters to be.
3) Crude is now cheaper than it was 12 months ago, and half what it was in July. Back then, when the market cost was high, the Tories were offering to “share the pain” and cut fuel duty. The quid pro quo was that when the price of crude was low, they would raise taxes. So why aren’t they calling for increases now? Doesn’t this show the vacuousness of their policy in the first place?
It is, of course, perfectly normal in political communications to translate something complicated into an easily comprehensible – even mundane – expression for public consumption. My own theory is that in this case it has been done not for the public but for the politician. Gideon does not actually know he is using a metaphor. I call it cruel on the part of CCHQ. Sooner or later he will want to know where this damn house is.