George Osborne’s main opponent isn’t Alistair Darling. It’s Vince Cable. As former chief economist at Shell, he’s that rare thing – a politician who knows what he’s talking about. Today he releases an “open letter” saying what I have heard some senior Tories say in private. The charge is that Osborne has come back from Wall St having swallowed what the banks told him in his proposal that that the government should swap mortgage-based assets for government bonds.
PoliticsHome has the text. An extract:-
“You say the bankers agree with you. Of course they do. It is their job to maximise profits for themselves and lay off risks to someone else. It is our job as responsible ministers or shadow ministers to protect taxpayers, not let the banks and other businesses take us for a ride.”
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