Fraser Nelson

So far today I have received six text messages about Michael Jackson's death - five of them wicked jokes that I shant repeat. The first just said "condolences" - sent from a friend who has long teased me for defending Jackson in pub arguments. Here's why. For all his wackiness he was, he was by any standards an incredible composer, singer and performer whose accomplishments towered above those of his far more normal competitors. It does him an injustice to remember him (as so many radio stations have done so far today) by the Jackson Five numbers.  They were pretty much all written by the Motown Corporation and Jackson's role was a kiddie vocalist. His signature work was the world's bestselling album, Thriller, where he wrote most songs and produced the greatest pop video ever made.

How will the Tories cuts council work? The Guardian has an interesting piece today, laying out some contours (which will be not entirely unfamiliar to CoffeeHousers). But there is much more to the story – albeit a story which is still being moulded. Much of Tory policy is being formed in response to what they regard as the structural failures of the Blair/Brown era.  George Osborne is keen to avoid what he regards as the dictatorial approach of Gordon Brown where ministers are handed their budgets and told to eat it. So he wants a more collegiate approach, and to this end has revived the idea of a ‘star chamber’ for spending – this idea was pioneered by the Thatcher government, chaired first of all by Keith Joseph and latterly by the Chancellor.

David Cameron devoted all six questions to a simple theme: Gordon Brown lied to the House of Commons last week when he said capital expenditure was rising every year to the Olympics. As we pointed out on Coffee House at the time, the figures are falling (see the graph above).  Brown's strategy is to think no one will try to bog him down in detail so he freely can give out his Brownies - which include, but are not restricted to, outright lies. Brown was, of course, pathologically unable to admit he got anything wrong. (Even now, in private, he won't admit that the gold sale was a mistake - something is just wired up wrongly inside his head.) Cameron kept at it, as he tried to develop the argument from "10% Tory cuts" into "Brown lies".

Ed Balls says he hopes there will never be education cuts under Labour – but I have some rather bad news for him. His department has calculated the effects of Gordon Brown’s plans to suck forward spending pre-election, and helpfully published the results in a pdf file (here). It says that spending per pupil peaks this year at £6,110. It starts to fall next year, by £50 a head – a small cut, but a cut nonetheless. The Brown strategy was to spend pre-election as much as he could: it stands to reason that cuts will follow. So it is time, too, for Balls to come clean. He should stop pretending there will be no school cuts, and accept the only question is how deep these cuts should be.

That Gordon Brown is a compulsive, effortless liar is demonstrated yet again by today's feature-length interview in The Guardian. He is hoping that the majority of journalists who interview him will either a) not find the total spending figures, or b) be unable to adjust them for inflation. I'm not saying Katharine Viner was credulous in listening to him repeat the below, but it's an interesting example. "The Tories have made, for them, a cardinal mistake in that they admitted the truth - that if you take 10% off the health service or schools or policing, you've cut into the jobs, the services, the expectations. The Conservatives' mask has slipped. They cannot be a centre ground party any more, they can't talk about being mainstream. The choice has become a lot clearer.

Cameron kicked off on the 10 percent issue. "Some Labour MPs were a bit confused when they were told about 10 percent: they thought it meant his opinion poll ratings." The gag went down well, and Cameron picked up where he left off with those spending totals that Brown read out in PMQs last week. They spelled out a real terms cut - though Cameron wasn't to know at the time (the figures were brand new and, suspiciously, cut out of the Treasury documents* perhaps when they realised that they spelled a cut).  But he certainly did this time, and kept asking Brown whether there are real terms cuts in the Budget. "I relish the chance to debate for once policy" said Brown - I very much doubt he does. He's been exposed as a liar. What will he do?

When Gordon Brown sends ministers out to lie about his spending plans, he can only really depend on Ed Balls to do it effortlessly. Some, like Andy Burnham, don’t understand his elaborate scam – and tie themselves in knots trying to. But Liam Byrne is a former businessman who does understand a balance sheet (and understands the concept of cooking the books). Yet he was instructed to hold a press conference today on Cameron’s cuts. Sadly, I wasn’t invited* but Byrne was ably grilled by the hacks who were present – and the following exchange with Nick Watt of The Guardian (which he has blogged) is worth repeating here. In it, Byrne concedes that spending post-2011 will fall.

This is the graphic to my News of the World column, representing the choice at the next election: two sorts of cuts. If Gordon Brown were smart, he would argue that his cuts would be better-aimed and more compassionate. Instead, he chooses to lie, saying - as he did in PMQs - that the choice is "between a Government who are prepared to invest in the future and a Conservative Party that will cut." No one, in any media outlet save for the Mirror (in which he has placed an article today), accepts this demonstrably false proposition. The deceit is rejected today by Martin Ivens in the Sunday Times, John Rentoul in the Sindy, Rees-Mogg in the Mail on Sunday - everyone knows that whoever wins, there will be cuts. So this leaves Cameron the opportunity to say he would cut better.

Gordon Brown does not change his ways, or his tactics. It will have shocked him to find the newspapers rejecting as a lie his claim that he would not cut spending. But he’ll be thinking, “they'll get bored of this rebuttal and I won't get bored of my attack.” So his strategy is to bulldoze his lie through to the public over the media’s objections. Labour has just released a dossier setting out what 10 percent cuts would supposedly mean. But as we know from the IFS and the 2009 Budget, Labour plans to cut by 7 percent - the difference between the two figures is simply because the Tories would spare health. In a mature, truthful debate (which Brown feels confident he will avoid) the question should be: who would cut what?

Andy Burnham has just let the cat out of the bag on Channel Four News: Labour would cut by 10 percent too. Our new Health Secretary has just been given a robust interview by Jon Snow and was asked if he would say there would not be cuts elsewhere if health is protected.  His reply: "This is the big difference, Jon, because Andrew Lansley will not commit to the budget we have set for the NHS in 2010-11. I am committing to you that this budget remains and I am also committing to you, in the way that the Prime Minister has, that we will continue to maintain growth in health spending in the following period." Except the Prime Minister has given no such commitment. But Mr Burnham has. And explicitly. Emphatically. Unmistakably.