CCHQ's department-by-department guide to Ballsonomics

Tim Montgomerie

More signs today that the Conservative operation is getting on the front foot and exposing the three major problems with Labour's economic strategy:

• Zero apology for the Brown legacy;
• Partisanship before national interest in opposing every saving that the Coalition is implementing;
• Chasing of headlines by making new unfunded spending promises and tax cuts.

In a dossier put together under George Osborne's watch CCHQ set out the key facts about Ballsonomics:

• On 16 February, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls told all Labour frontbenchers they could not make unfunded spending commitments.
• But in just four weeks since then, Labour have made £12 billion of unfunded spending commitments.
• That’s £3 billion of spending commitments a week. £430 million a day. £18 million an hour. Or £300,000 a minute.
• And despite saying they would not oppose every cut, in the last four weeks they have opposed over £50 billion of savings proposed by the Coalition to clear up the mess they left.
• Labour have not learned from their mistakes.
• They have no control over their spending promises and would max out the nation’s credit card all over again.
• They can never be trusted with the public finances again.

You can Download a PDF of the whole CCHQ dossier. It should be essential reading for BBC interviewers. For every department there is a list of savings Labour has proposed and any new, unfunded commitments they've made. Labour spokesmen must not be allowed to oppose every deficit reduction measure without stating what they would do instead.