It's my way or "ruin", says Osborne in attack on Labour's "deficit deniers"

By Tim Montgomerie

David Cameron may be on holiday but his effective Conservative deputy, George Osborne, has returned from his and makes a speech today with two main aims.

AIM ONE IS TO TURN THE POLITICAL DEBATE FROM A REFERENDUM ON COALITION CUTS TO A CHOICE BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND LABOUR'S DEFICIT DENIERS

With Coalition net popularity at +1%, the Tories and LibDems are increasingly turning their fire on Labour. There is a belief at the top of the Coalition that more needs to be done to hold the Labour party responsible for the mess we all find ourselves in. The Chancellor will accuse Gordon Brown of "the greatest failure of economic policy-making for more than thirty years" and say that the Labour leadership candidates are in denial about the nation's economic predicament:

"Those who deny the need to cut the deficit and those who refuse to say how to do it are placing themselves outside of the domestic and international debate. And in becoming deficit deniers they are saying that they would set the economy on a road to economic ruin."

He told this morning's Today programme that Labour had pencilled in £44bn of spending cuts (he is planning £61bn) but not one Labour politician has even begun to spell out how they intended to achieve any of those reductions.

AIM TWO IS TO SET OUT THE COALITION'S 'BEYOND-THE-CUTS' AGENDA

The other change of narrative that Mr Osborne wants to achieve is to ensure the Coalition's reform aims are also communicated. Clegg and Cameron began this narrative shift two weeks ago in a joint letter to Cabinet colleagues. There has, the Chancellor believes, been too much emphasis on cuts and not enough emphasis on the radical measures that ConservativeHome listed yesterday. On Today, Mr Osborne said the Coalition was a fundamentally "progressive" project, aiming to achieve justice across the generations by reducing debt and by looking after the poorest at the same time by, for example, ringfencing the NHS and overseas aid budgets. He will say:

"We are shaping the economy of the future by promoting a pro-growth agenda. We are shaping the big society of the future by decentralising power and empowering people. We are shaping the public services of the future by reforming the public sector so it delivers value for money. And we are shaping Britain's future role in the world through our review of defence and security."

***

Mr Osborne used his Today programme interview to distance himself from the idea that greater equality of outcome should be a government aim. He said that he wanted to deliver equality of opportunity and that the Coalition's reforms in education, welfare and health - as well as the reduction of the deficit - were part of his hope that a child born today would enjoy a better chance to succeed in life than a child born during the Brown-Blair era. Last week eleven Tory MPs signed a pledge that appeared to support equality of outcome.