---

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

I would give the right hon. Gentleman more credit if he had been more explicit about all these dangers before the election. Interestingly, the right hon. Gentleman has been sufficiently concerned about the public finances to put pen to paper. We should take at face value the concern that he expressed at the start of the financial crisis in an interesting article in The Guardian titled "Cameron and Osborne are peddling skewed facts and scaremongering on public finances". He felt moved to open his article by writing:""You do not normally expect opposition politicians to leap to the defence of the government of the day, but there is an important national interest in doing so on the key issue of public finances. If David Cameron's view that the 'cupboard is bare' gains ground, not only will policymakers feel more constrained, but we will risk thinking and talking ourselves into a worse downturn."" He does not even have a blank record to defend, because his record is one of defending us on the public finances—[Interruption.] I do not want to take up too much time, but if he wants to explain away his article, I shall give way to him.