Will this put more pressure on Brown?
Or could it be seen as a bit contrived?
In his first speech since returning to work after the death of of son, Ivan, David Cameron will say “sorry” for his party’s failure to “to warn about the rising levels of corporate debt, banking debt and borrowing from abroad”.
The real problem for the Tories here is that they aren’t in power and Cameron’s move could be dismissed as a bit contrived. After all none of the policy decisions since May 2nd 1997 have had anything to do with his party. So his wording is quite interesting.
Andrew Sparrow in the Guardian puts it this way: “In the past, Cameron, and other Tories, have tried to take credit for flagging up these problems over the last few years. But he will tonight adopt a new approach, saying his party should have done more to highlight the problems being stored up by the extent of bank borrowing.
“The unsustainable debts in our banks are a reflection of unsustainable debts in our households, our companies and our government,” he will say.
“But, if I’m honest, I have to admit that we – the Conservative party – didn’t see this as early as we could have…”
Maybe that works. Certainly Brown’s position on this has become more isolated within Labour following comments from Ed Balls and Alistair Darling.
But as we enter what has to be the final year before an election is called everything is highly political. Nobody wants to put a step wrong and it is going to be tough for the PM to continue with his current line of argument. But the last thing he wants is to be seen to be doing something in response to Cameron.
This one will run and run.
Weekend polls: If the Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday are following their normal schedules then we should see new YouGov and ComRes polls tomorrow night. Maybe they’ll give us a better idea of who is winning the public debate?
