Financial Times: if only the Tories could be more like the Lib Dems

I paraphrase, of course, but only very slightly… Here’s what the Pink ‘Un‘s editorial has to say about the Tories’ response to the current financial crisis:

It is a cliché to say that Britain’s Conservative party has no policies. It is also untrue; the Tories have views on issues as diverse as why a bottlenose whale starved to death in the Thames and the rate at which British museums buy new pieces for their collections. They have a complex foreign policy of alternately hissing at the work of the European Union and forlornly reaching for the hem of Barack Obama’s cloak. The problem is that the Tory party still lacks overarching strategies – especially when it comes to tackling the global economic crisis.

If the Tories win the next election – due in the next year or so – they will either inherit the deepest recession since the Great Depression or its aftermath. The UK now has zombie banks thrashing around on the public balance sheet and world demand is tumbling. Part of the Tories’ brief, as the country’s official opposition, is to apply pressure on the government to make sure it finds ways to navigate past these rocks and hard places. The Tories speak in hushed tones with solemn words, but they are failing in this duty.

So true, but I’ve saved the best bit til last:

The third-party Liberal Democrats have been a far more fertile source of ideas and policy.

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2 Comments

  • David Raynes 11th Mar '09 - 8:47pm

    One might as well say, “if only the one Libdem who has showed any economic common sense, (ie Vince Cable) was a Tory”, That would be better for Britain. Some of us remember the silly nonsense of the Lib Dem “local income tax”. Just imagine the swarms of public servants that would need to carry out, just imagine the avoidance.

  • Sorry a fair local tax is not a silly nonsense, which is why local income tax is still party policy as far as I am aware. It should be no harder to administrate than council tax given we already have national paye income tax set up to piggy back the payment of local income tax on.

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