Tears of a clown

George Osborne has called on Labour’s disgruntled MPs to defy the party whip and vote for “economic sanity” tonight...

In an emailed statement last night the chancellor moved to exploit the internal Labour divisions over Mr Osborne’s proposed Charter of Budget Responsibility, committing the government to cutting the deficit.

The Times (£)

The question here is who's made the bigger U-Turn - the shadow chancellor who, for reasons unknown, decided to go along with this Charter of Budget Responsibility nonsense for a few days, before coming to his senses, or the chancellor, who was thoroughly against this sort of thing until he was for it?

Let us remember what one of the economists whom the Prime Minister himself appointed to the Monetary Policy Committee has said about the Bill. Willem Buiter has said:

"Fiscal responsibility acts are instruments of the fiscally irresponsible to con the public."

Mr. George Osborne (Tatton) (Con), as reported in Hansard, January 2010

Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fooling you
Now honey that's quite a different subject 

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