Will deferring the pain save the votes?
How will this be viewed in Tory targets 100-150?
Well there we have it. Darling’s PBR which will frame much of the political debate as we move into the final months of this parliament.
The strategy seemed fairly obvious – defer the pain until after polling day. But is this going to be enough? Will voter’s see through it? How, most importantly, is this going to be viewed in Tory targets 100-150 where the election will be decided.
I just wondered whether Labour should have been a bit more daring with the potential cuts which just about everybody believes are going to happen? Should he have found the equivalent of the Osborne extend the retirement age to 66 move that we saw a couple of months ago?
A final thought: how Mr. Brown must rue his decision in the first week of 2007 to duck out of an election then? A fourth victory was there for the taking. He allowed the initiative to move away and Labour has been on the back foot ever since.
We’ll see from the next crop of voting intention and leader approval polls how this has gone down.