The Observer view on the main parties and honesty about Britain’s finances | Observer editorial

Too much debate about cuts and not enough clear outlines of how to run the country for everyone's benefit

From the hushed atmosphere of the Institute for Fiscal Studies' basement lair in Bloomsbury, central London, the broad outlines of next month's general election appeared crystal clear, laid out in red, blue and yellow lines on a kaleidoscope of charts. Britain's public sector deficit, running at about 10% of national income when the coalition came to power five years ago, has been halved. All the major parties want to reduce it further, but the Conservatives plan to do so more rapidly - they would make much deeper, "unspecified" cuts to public spending.

Yet the IFS, so often the voice of common sense during this drawn-out election campaign, castigated all the major parties for leaving voters "in the dark" about what kind of future they could expect over the next five years.

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