The Stan Laurel And Oliver Hardy Of The Labour Party...

Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband (it took two of them..?!) have a stirring ‘Vote Labour’ election advert in ‘CiF’:

The TV series Faking It made compelling viewing because people were trained for high-flying jobs and either got away with it or got rumbled. Anyone watching the shadow chancellor over the last week would recognise that sense of a contestant being found out.

His spending strategy is unravelling against the backdrop of a global consensus that we must sustain recovery, not undermine it.

There's a 'global consensus', then? Where was that announced?

The real question facing Britain is not how to nudge people but how to give them power over their own lives. The need for collective action is clear: from climate change to reforming social care, from improving education standards to tackling unemployment.

All things which this government has singularly failed to do over the last twelves years.

But if you vote for them this year, they promise to sort it out!

And it goes to the heart of why Conservatism is wrong for the next decade: the right kind of state action is not a drain on individual empowerment; it can enhance it.

There's been precious little enhancement from this government, though; section 44, the spread of CCTV, PCSOs, the widespread use of RIPA powers by local councils, etc, etc...

Osborne and the Conservatives are caught between the ideology that defines them and the real lessons from the financial crisis. In the face of massive market failure, they continue to assert that society's problems will be solved if we simply have a small state.

Whereas Dougie and Ed know that the real answer is a massive, unsustainable state!

The role and shape of the state will be central to the coming election campaign.

In its manifesto, Labour will offer itself as both the reformer and defender of progressive government.

I doubt anyone in this current government actually knows what 'progressive' means, much less believes they embody it...

We understand that the real task for government in the coming decade is to protect people from risk and enhance opportunity.

Problem being, boys, most of the risk actually comes from the state. And as for 'enhancing opportunity', well, yes, if you totally ignore the cost of that opportunity...

You aren't the solution; you're the problem.

And society can only be strengthened if we recognise the role for government in supporting families rather than leaving people to sink or swim.

Supporting them how?

Financially, with the massive and unsustainable welfare state? Or by undermining them at every possible opportunity, as you have with the secretive family courts?

Moreover, the chances of a young person from a low income family going to university have more than doubled under Labour.

Oh, well said! Great comedy timing!

Just as the government announce massive cutbacks in higher education, forcing universities and polytechnics to drop all the useless media studies and degrees in Klingon those young people on low incomes had been studying...

We know, too, that we need to be reformers of the state. As constituency MPs, we see people facing daily frustrations in their interactions with government: disempowered not empowered.

Heh. Good luck with that. Just yesterday, one of your own MPs was Tweeting his frustration with council demands and interference:

You can only imagine how much greater the influence of BigGov is resented by the long-suffering taxpayer...

That is why our manifesto will strengthen the power of people in their interaction with the state. Central to this are the guarantees we will make in our public services: to maximum waiting times for hospital treatment, the right to a good school for your child, one-to-one tuition if your child falls behind to responsive, neighbourhood policing. We also plan to extend direct payments in social care so that it becomes the norm for older people and their carers to decide for themselves what they need and how it should be provided.

Maybe my memory's playing tricks on me, but weren't all those election promises the last couple of times too?

We have made decisions on taxes, including at the top, to protect key public services at the same time as we make cuts elsewhere.

Translation: We'll threaten schoolsn'ospitals if you dare vote for the Tories, but cutting out the useless dead wood of diversity and multiculti initiatives, not a chance...

By contrast, the Conservatives are instead focused on undermining the gains of the last decade. Take Labour's three innovations in income, services and assets for children: tax credits, Sure Start, the child trust fund. The Tories have said that all would be subject to cutbacks, part of their belief in the residual welfare state.

'Nooo, don't vote Tory, vote Labour, for the chilllldreeeennnn!'

We will fight for our vision of society: enabling government, empowering people, a society where we grow together, not apart.

A society 'where we grow together, not apart'. The closing paragraph to an article released on the very same day four MPs were charged with fiddling expenses, while many, many more escaped justice by paying back money that won't even cover the cost of forcing them to do so...

Great timing, boys.