Back to the Future

The 80's are upon us, the BBC should start re-running Dallas and Dynasty. Shoulderpads will be back, along with the mullets, perms and rock ballads.

To aid us in this trip down memory lane, the two big political parties have obliged by reverting to 80's economic policies. Labour has ditched the policies of golden rules and trying to balance the books (although they did this a while ago but didn't admit it). In fact they have for the last few years been doing the old tax-and-spend tango, with a quick chassé of tax cuts before the big tax rises after the next election.

The Tories have catapulted the policy of sharing the proceeds of growth and reverted to 'sound' money, only allowing tax cuts paid for by savings in the current budget. It's back to Thatcher.

So as we listen to Duran Duran, there is now a clear dividing line in politics again. The past two elections have been fought with Labour standing in the centre and the Tories to the right - a position which it could never win from, which is why the Tories also had to move to the centre. But now the Labour party have moved to the left, and so the Tories can move to the right and still win.

I'm hoping the British public will see through the current boost for the Government and appreciate that times will be getting significantly harder with the burgeoning debt. We need 'sound' money now more than ever.

Squiffy.