If only Osborne’s spending would make a great leap forward
Our chancellor could not resist it. Once again, while presenting the latest revisions to his "long-term plan", he dragged up the Labour chief secretary Liam Byrne's line in 2010 that "there's no money left". I say line, because it was not a spoken remark but a phrase contained in the customary written note from the outgoing chief secretary to the incoming one, who happened - for what turned out to be a very short time - to be the Liberal Democrat David Laws.
This was meant to be a joke, and Treasury officials thought it was bad form for Laws to publicise a private letter. But the joke rebounded on Byrne and Labour, and the Conservatives are still milking it all these years later. And last week shadow chancellor John McDonnell tried a deliberately more public joke with his production of Chairman Mao's little red book. This backfired too, and the Tories will milk it mercilessly as well.
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