Can the Tories really be planning to fight the next election lying about the deficit? I ask because in his speech today, David Cameron has just repeated an untrue claim which made its debut in a George Osborne newspaper article a few days ago: that they have ‘halved’ the deficit*. Here’s what the Prime Minister had to say:
‘Already we have cut the deficit in half and we have set out clear steps to finish the job by 2018.’
If honesty matters at all in politics, neither Cameron or Osborne should get away with this.
This is no slip of the tongue – it was in the script. The Tories are testing the water, seeing if the media will kick up. If no fuss is made, then I suspect both will go all the way through to the election falsely claiming to have “halved” the deficit.
Cameron did, originally, plan to cut the deficit in half over the lifetime of this parliament.
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