Labour: shooting itself in the foot

Alistair Darling claims that George Osborne's credibility is 'shot to bits' by his announcement that the Tories intend to stop Labour's proposed increase in national insurance. He says,

What is incredible are the claims that George Osborne is now making, promising to spend billions of pounds in the next Parliament when he hasn't got a single penny in the bank to do it. (src)

Um, whose credibility is shot to bits by the current Chancellor's admission that there 'isn't a single penny in the bank'?

In any case, it's not about spending money so much as about promising not to raise money by a very damaging tax. You wouldn't advise someone sorting out their personal debt problems to hire the children out as chimneysweeps, but that doesn't mean you'd advise ignoring the debt problem. Likewise, we do need to sort out the deficit, but taxing jobs is too damaging a way of doing it. We must find another way.

Incidentally, Labour supporters are rattled by the Tories' new poster campaign. Why do I know this? Labourlist is running a column saying that the Conservative party are wasting their money on Saatchi (src), but the five reasons they give apply in spades to some of Labour's own posters.

Load rifle. Aim downwards. Pull trigger…