Alan Johnson, from affable to aggressive  

If Alan Johnson continues as he has started, then he may be a surlier, snarlier shadow chancellor than many of us expected. He’s got an article in today’s News of the World and an interview in The Observer – and, in both, he’s on unusually combative form. Osborne’s cuts are labelled as “deep and irresponsible,” and the VAT rise is highlighted as a measure that will affect “those on middle and low incomes the most.” Johnson even claims, with Balls-like stridency, that the coalition could drag us screaming into double-dip.

And there’s more. With a disingenuousness that would impress even Gordon Brown, Johnson glowers that the coalition’s cuts are deeper than those during the Thatcher years. Depending on which metric you use, that’s true enough. But the shadow chancellor must have forgotten that both Alistair Darling and Liam Byrne admitted the same when it came to Labour’s plans. I suppose these details don’t matter when you’re trying to caricature the nasty Tories and their nastier cuts.