Like James, I thought David Cameron performed well in his “Face the Audience” appearance explaining the budget yesterday. I also think the Prime Minister and his Deputy should do more of these “Meet and Explain” events and, yes, they should do them together. If Cameron was persuasive then Nick Clegg was also excellent, not least since, again, a BBC journalist did his best to find some daylight between Clegg and Cameron. [Transcript here, incidentally.]
You can quibble with some of what they said and, for that matter, honestly disagree with much of it too. Nevertheless, there was something calmly impressive about the manner – and manner counts for almost as much as matter in these engagements – in the way they went about explaining their decisions in the face of sceptical and often quite hostile questioning. (Like Paul Goodman I was struck by the absence of many people prepared to endorse much of the budget; then again these are difficult times.)
Equally, and again, the advantages of a coalition government were made obvious.
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