‘You’re going to feel some pressure,’ say dentists as they prepare to inflict pain. The more honest they are, the more tolerable the experience tends to be. So it is with political actions that have foresee-able adverse consequences: as much as voters dislike those consequences, they dislike being lied to even more.
David Cameron’s interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr last weekend was another minor milestone on the road to Number 10. Faced with a redundant economic policy — the promise to ‘share the proceeds’ of non-existent economic growth — the Tory leader and George Osborne correctly deduced that new battle-lines could be drawn: honesty about the austerity measures that lie ahead versus Gordon Brown’s dishonest talk of continued ‘investment’. But astute analysis is one thing; following through its logic quite another.
It is very much to Mr Cameron’s credit that he acknowledges both the gravity of the task confronting him as Prime Minister in waiting and — harder still — the extent to which we shall all pay a price.
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