Sunday 20 March 2016

The IDS of March

If the attack lines against Jeremy Corbyn were remotely accurate, or if anyone cared whether they were or they weren't, then the Conservatives would be 20 or 30 points ahead.

As it is, they were tied with Labour last week, and they were behind Labour this week.

Even that, though, was before the Cabinet Minister most admired by the base resigned, and resigned specifically in order to oppose the cuts in general and the benefit cuts in particular.

Austerity is an EU project. So, perfectly logically, you can now oppose the EU or support the cuts, but not both. In reality, it was ever thus.

Support for austerity, and not least for the benefit cuts? Or opposition to the EU? Which is it going to be, and why?

Opposition to austerity, and not least to the benefit cuts? Or support for the EU? Which is it going to be, and why?

It is of course possible to oppose both. Iain Duncan Smith seems to have embarked on the road to becoming Tony Benn, who was also quite right-wing at one time.

We are now in back the days of the Major Government, which, long before Tony Blair appeared, was limping along for years in the full knowledge that Labour was bound to win the coming General Election.

2 comments:

  1. What are you talking about? The "benefit cuts" he resigned over had nothing to do with the EU.

    The EU prevented the last attempted benefit cut-David Cameron's failed attempt to stop British taxpayers paying child benefit to EU migrant families who don't even live here.

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    Replies
    1. Reeling, I see, as the bottom falls out of your world. I do love a knowingly mixed metaphor.

      Oh, well.

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