Rule 97 in the Practitioner’s Guide to Westminster Politics: if you want to get a
message out pronto, then corral a bunch of impressive names into writing a letter to a national newspaper. We saw the tactic used by both Labour and the Tories before the election. And we see it again today, with a letter in the Telegraph, drafted by the Tory peer Lord
Wolfson and signed by 35 business leaders, pushing George Osborne to “press ahead with his plans to reduce the deficit”. And you know what? He may just do that.
In truth, these kinds of letters are hardly a bad thing for the government, however stage-managed they might be. As the week of the spending review kicks in, the headline that people will see is: “Cut now or pay later, say business leaders”.
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