Well, that was dull. Seriously, that’s an hour of my life I’m not going to get back any time soon. In fact, I’m struggling to find anything interesting to say about it.
Darling was competent, but a bit dull; Osborne was crap, but nowhere near as crap as predicted, nor crap enough to be funny; and Cable was entertaining enough, but a bit uselesss and not at all challenged on his views and policies. They’re popular and populist, but are they well thought through? Last night was no illumination. In fact, St. Vince sounded like every middle-class lefty-liberal post-dinner party luminary, expounding how they’d been warning about easy credit and banking irregularities for years, etc., etc.
That said, Cable did provide the most interesting thing about the debate, for the Westminster Kremlinologists amongst us. He did very little to put clear water between himself and Darling, and in fact proved himself to be the most efficient attack dog on the kind of issues the Tories are weak on – Inheritance Tax, “wealthy backers”, banking reform, “fictitious waste”, and so on.
I imagine Darling’s strategy was to look measured and statesmanlike while using Cable to make the “left-wing” points to damage the Tories, but as one on the left of the Labour party, I’d have preferred it to have been our guy who told the audience, and the people at home that the Tories “top priority is to cut Inheritance Tax for millionaires”.
A couple of final thoughts about spin. Clearly, Osborne wasn’t as crap as some thought he would be. But then again, the Labour Twitterati had ensured that expectations were so low for him that, to paraphrase the West Wing, “so long as he doesn’t set the podium on fire, that’s a win for him”. Tories are keen to rail about how we’d be spinning this like mad, but looking at the likes of Henry Macrory, Tim Montgomerie and ToryBear’s tweets, and it’s just as spinny as any Labour tweeters. I think that fact is that there was so little of interest in this debate that we’ve had to spin it not to our own party lines, but to make it interesting at all!
Agreed. Tuned out half way through. Wanted something funny to happen to George – it didn’t. Have heard it all before, only difference was that they had to say it to each other’s faces instead of hide behind YouTube/media.