Let's Talk About Debt

Who would have thought it? After years of denial Brown finally admits, sort of, responsibility for the banking collapse by deregulating them 'in the nineties', thus proving, incidentally, that the Tory banking regulatory checks and balances worked perfectly. If it ain't broke, Brown fixes it. Now Britain's broke.

Speaking of which, I am hoping tonight that Cameron nails Brown on the scale of the debt crisis this country faces and that his policies caused. The fact that the mainstream media can't seem to grasp this, nor most of the bizarre economic 'expert' commentariat of this country (the Anatole Kaletsky-types), should not frighten the Tory leader. He must make it plain to all that we really can't go on like this. Brown can't blame the banks for making him cave in on deregulation 'in the nineties'. And, as Dan Hannan I think said yesterday, if the banks' advice about deregulation was wrong - and Brown shouldn't have listened to it - why did he decide to listen to the same bankers over the public, trillion-pound bailout? Fool me once and all that. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Debt. Cameron's got to talk about it, not just to demolish Brown, but to be straight with the electorate about the scale of the challenge Brown's scorched earth policies have left for a Conservative government to repair and for future generations to pay off. We are, indeed, all in this together. Everyone. So what is there to be done?

Well, the first thing to do is to face up to reality. The other two parties can't do this because they are wedded to a particular ideology of big state interventionism, so the Conservatives, as always, will have to do it on their own - with a little help from the population. The reality is that public spending is bankrupting the country. I'm not saying that Cameron should be specific about where the axe will fall, but fall it must - hard and often. He's got to level with people, but in a positive way: a little pain now; pleasure later. Reform everything, abolish waste, get more bang for your buck and fix the public finances, starting with Labour's nightmarish overspending, currently putting us at a humiliating 20% bankruptcy risk (five times higher than France, Germany or the USA).

Labour's all about pleasure, pleasure, pleasure -now, now, now - until there's simply no money left to pay for it. That's just infantile.

If the infants are returned, therefore, with "economy killer" Brown at the helm, this country will effectively be bankrupt within a few years.

As it is we already face a period of Labournomic, fake growth (where every £1 of expansion in the economy actually costs the taxpayer £2 in 'stimulus' money. Hey, that's just what the figures say.) As it is we already face a period of stagflation. As it is we already face what could be another lost decade, just like the last time Labour was in charge.

Anyway, those are the sorts of things Cameron needs to talk about, along with all the optimistic stuff, obviously. People want an effective leader, not just a charming one.

Brown is neither. Cameron could be both.