Peter Hoskin

Yesterday, Matthew agreed with Daniel Finkelstein that the Tories should hold back a little – and spend more time reassuring the electorate – before cutting taxes wholesale.  As he put it: “As tiresome as it may sometimes be, the essence of modernisation always boils down to reassurance of one kind of another: and those who think that the core Cameroon project of reassuring the voters is complete really are living in cloud cuckoo-land. I very much hope that Chancellor Osborne has the scope to cut the tax burden. He certainly has the inclination.

For the past few weeks, CoffeeHouse has been asking its readers to shout out about Gordon Brown’s lies – or Brownies, as we call them.  The response has been superb.  Congrats to CoffeeHouser James, for providing an almost comprehensive list: “As for GB's lies...where to begin: The Constitution/treaty. The state of the economy when he took over in 1997. Comparing RPI in the 1990s with CPI now. Constantly pretending that unemployment is now low, and youth unemployment almost abolished - when over 4million are not in proper work. The scandalous New Deal. The scandalous failure of the Tax Credit system. The lie that defence spending has gone up in real terms (inflation in the defence sector runs at around 8%).” But there are others.

Northern Rock is £110 billion of public debt.  An amount which “blows a hole” in the Treasury’s “sustainable investment rule” – that the debt-GDP ratio shouldn’t go higher than 40 percent.  It’s simple – now let’s look forward to Alistair Darling squirming as he delivers next week’s Budget. The only problem is that the Government looks set on keeping the Rock debt off the public balance sheet.  So it won’t affect the sustainable investment rule, and Darling can meet all his targets.  There’ll be no squirming after all. Their reasoning?  That the Northern Rock burden is so “temporary and exceptional” that it needn’t trouble the fiscal rules.

As James Kirkup reports over at Three Line Whip, Nick Clegg’s still getting himself into a "pickle" over Europe.  Here are the three key points which came out of his media briefing earlier today: “Yes, [Clegg]'s put his MPs on a three line whip not to vote at all when the Commons decides on a Tory bid for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. But no, he won't say if he'll sack the (significant) number of front-benchers who may well defy him on that: ‘I'm allowed to decide at that time.’ And no, he (probably) won't allow his side to back a clever two-question amendment being worked up by Ian Davidson, a Labour rebel, which might just have given him a get-out:  ‘We certainly aren't getting into game-playing.

Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party Spring Conference was hardly inspiring stuff.  In fact, Rosa Prince tells you all you need to know over at Three Line Whip: "Theme: Elitist Tories want cuts in public services and a referendum on the past (i.e. Europe) - Labour is delivering on opportunity for all." Here - for intrepid readers - is Brown's version of that:   "So let me explain why only the Labour Party has the seriousness of purpose, the hunger for change, the passion for spreading opportunity,  the mission of justice for all that can meet the rising ambitions of this new age. Why?

Iain Dale flags up a letter in today’s Telegraph written by 27 of the 2005 intake of Tory MPs.  They’re asking for the sanctions that MPs face to be tightened, and even suggest the introduction of US-style recall mechanisms: "...we do think that consideration should be given to creating a recall mechanism, similar to that used in some US states, to enable constituents to vote on whether they remove their MP during the course of a Parliament. For example, in California in 2003, a petition was organised calling for the recall of the governor, Gray Davis. Once it was established that a sufficient number of electors had signed the petition, a ballot was held on whether Davis should be recalled. That ballot succeeded, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to replace him...