Cabinet rows back on ‘cuts vs spending’ strategy

Cabinet this morning acknowledged that the “cuts versus spending” line of attack which Gordon Brown has been pounding out at top volume for weeks has been a bit of an own goal and ministers this morning talked about “refining” the message.

The new mantra is supposed to be “more realistic”, I hear, with messages like “the next 10 years are NOT going to be like the last 10 years”.

There will be more talk of “targeted investment” not pure “spending”, more focus on “efficiency savings”.

One Cabinet minister said there had been a feeling that, given where Labour was in the polls, the party needed to “take risks” and hope that when voters heard the “cuts versus investment” chant their thoughts were dominated by images of 1980s Tories, not lines from David Cameron and the commentariat saying that it was a false dilemma and that cuts were coming whoever came into power.

That strategy is now being rethought.