Strange days, indeed. While most of the frontpages today are unflattering for Labour – particularly, and unsurprisingly, those of the Telegraph and the Sun – I imagine that Brown & Co. will be quite pleased with the general tone of the Budget coverage. Much of it mirrors the Independent’s view that Darling “played a weak hand well”. Or, elsewhere, there’s a kind of detached indifference about what is described as a “boring” Budget.
Yes, if you like, you can take that as proof that the Darling-and-Mandelson approach to the public finances is less politically toxic, and a good degree more sensible, than the Balls-and-Brown approach. But, to my mind, it also represents a general failure of the media, and of Labour’s poltical opposition, to hold the government to account. It is, as Danny Finkelstein wrote in the Times yesterday, nothing short of scandalous that Darling is delaying his spending review until after the election.
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