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Finance Bill

Absolutely. Let us not get too hung up on this issue, but I take the hon. Gentleman's point. There are potential benefits and lessons that we could learn, although all political systems are different. The Treasury Secretary is not an elected politician in the United States—indeed, nobody in the United States Cabinet is, apart from the President and the vice-president—but I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. The point that I was making before those interventions was that the Government have presided over extraordinary levels of debt, which we will be paying back until 2032, by the most reliable estimates. Many people—the mood in the country appears to suggest this—think that the Government have run out of steam and served their time in office. The question then arises whether any other political parties have solutions and policies superior to those being put forward by the Government. I know that the Conservatives revel in our national misery and are running around celebrating their election win already, without anyone having yet cast a vote, but let us see whether their record justifies their confidence. Boris Johnson, who reportedly shares my concerns about the limitations of the Conservative party leader, wrote in The Daily Telegraph on 27 April about the Labour Government:""It believed its own demented propaganda about ending boom and bust"." He is exactly right: Labour did believe that demented propaganda. However, the Conservatives believe the same demented propaganda. Talking about the Iraq war vote, it is only now that they turn round and say, "We were so convinced by the sincerity of Tony Blair. We feel very upset that he's let us down." After all, why else would the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) and others have as their central policy—until it collapsed in the past few months—that the Conservative party would "share the proceeds of growth"? The only way in which we could share the proceeds of growth indefinitely is by believing that there would be a continual boom and no prospect of bust. If the Conservatives thought that there would be an economic cycle of boom and bust, they would have to say that they would share the proceeds of negative growth, and I never heard a Conservative spokesman once mention that. What the Conservatives said was predicated on the assumption that growth would be permanent. In the debate on the Finance Bill exactly a year ago, I warned the Conservatives of the folly of matching Labour's spending commitments. I said that simply, clearly and in black and white. I was ignored on that occasion, and told that it was an article of faith for the Conservatives to stick to the Labour party's spending commitments, but then, a few months ago, they came up with exactly the opposite policy, having heeded my warning.