Cuts Week – Day 2
Is it smart to bring all the bad news together?
The sheer scale of what we are seeing this week is quite incredible. I can’t recall a period as intensive as this when so many announcements of such a magnitude were compressed into such a short period.
The strategy, taking a five year time-span, is to get all the bad news out early so that by the time the coalition partners are going to the country then this will seem a long time ago.
Having so much coming out so quickly can deflect attention from specific sensitive areas because there’s soon something to move onto.
So far, at least, the core coalition strategy, to blame it all on the last lot, is continuing to resonate. The latest YouGov polling reports that 48% think the cuts are the fault of Labour, 18% the coalition and with 16% blame both of them. That’s pretty good for Cameron/Clegg but will it be sustained?
Because there’s so much news coming out it becomes quite hard for Labour to get its voice heard. The media tends to focus on the details and the communities that are affected that there’s not much time for the opposition.
I thought EdM did okay in response to Cameron but Labour needs a convincing rhetoric to deal with the core argument that it’s all their fault.