| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Community group at odds with coalition | |
| Posted by: | Andrew Penty | |
| Date/Time: | 26/11/09 13:56:00 |
| A useful analysis from John Connelly. Sue Sampson makes a half valid point, all be it in point-scoring fashion, when she tells us the ICG will say they supported low tax but opposed the cuts. I'm sure they will, but it seems nobody has told her that the Labour party is now an advocate of zero percent too so in all likelihood she will be telling us the same thing! It is easy to criticise the Tory proposals (and I do) but it will not be half so easy for Labour to produce a zero percent alternative of their own, and that is the challenge. The ICG for their part have many choices. They can support the Tories, persuade the Tories to replace the controversial items with something less contentious (unspecified), support a (zero percent) Labour budget which must inevitably be forthcoming, present a budget of their own (either zero percent or with a small increase), or even abstain completely (cowardly and unimaginative). So speculation about what they might do or not do is premature. What does seem to have happened is that the Tories, for the first time, will have been struck rigid by the realisation that with only 24 seats to their name they cannot just bulldozer their budget through without regard for anybody else. I wonder if the high ranking officers who would seem to have led them into this mess will now be prepared to help them out of it, or whether they will walk away and laugh. |