Cameron should be grateful he's on the opposite benches

Alistair Darling today delivered a budget in which he knew he couldn't win. The economic situation is dire, he was facing the inevitability of massive borrowing - £175 billion this year and £700 billion over the next 5 years. Total national debt will peak at 80% of Gross Domestic Product virtually double the 'top line' figure set by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor, and we will not be back in balance - at best - until 2018.




Could it be worse? Darling did at least attempt to boost the economy through job creation measures, desperately needed, but his hands were necessarily tied by the balancing act of trying to please everyone at a time when the piggy bank was empty and the need to borrow so much money.

The interesting thing is that criticism has mainly been that he hasn't committed enough funds to boost business, boost housing or benefit the poor. All this probably true but he was on a hiding to nothing. The criticism has come from business leaders and economists alike and it puts the Conservatives approach under the microscope.

David Cameron was able to manufacture some outrage and passion over the 'utter mess' Brown and Darling had made of the economy, and, of course, there were enthusiastic cheers for the sentiment from the Tory benches.




However let's stop a moment. Cameron may be getting his day in the sun at Labour's expense, sneering at Brown's claims during the good years that 'boom and bust are over'. But it's a good job for Cameron that no one really puts the opposition proposals under the spotlight until an election is called. So he and George Osborne can continue blaming Labour's mishandling of the economy with impunity.

But what is their solution? To sit tight, to save money, to not spend our way out of recession. The interesting thing is hardly any of the world's leading economists agree with them. Because that means deflation, a squeezing of commerce, no money circulating to get the economy moving again. And Cameron and his policies really should be put under the spotlight. But they won't be until they become possibly relevant, two or three months before an election.

So I advise David Cameron to cash in while he can. When his policies begin to be dissected, line by line, in the light of the world global crisis, my suspicion is that 'the great white hope' of our monied classes will begin to look horribly naked.