Yes, we heard you George ... again and again
BACK in 1997, Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell said there was ‘24 hours to save the NHS’. It may not have been entirely (or even remotely) true but it helped win them a landslide general election.
Yesterday George Osborne did one of his serious faces – lemon-sucker lips and the narrowed gaze of a constipated toddler on its potty – and said there were ‘36 days left to save Britain’s economic recovery’.
Paradoxically, this has every chance of being all too horribly true – but can it win the Tories enough votes for a majority government?
Being hard of hearing, I am usually grateful to people who repeat themselves. I often have to get my daughters and wife to say things three times before I hear their fluting voices.
Mr Osborne went beyond that yesterday when he made an afternoon speech in Yorkshire. He produced the ‘36 days left to save the economy’ line so often that if he’s been a CD you would have taken him out of the machine and checked for scratches.
We were on the edge of Pudsey, a Tory seat on the outskirts of Leeds. Having arrived a couple of hours early, I looked round the city and found it booming. Also had a peep at Leeds Minster – lots of handsome, dark wood and an organ console worthy of a Harry Potter film.
The city seemed to be buzzing, with plenty of building projects (they are even planning one at the Minster) and arcades as prosperous as any in chi-chi Surrey.
Yet Leeds, with its unreformed constituency boundaries and its tribal socialist vote, remains very much Labour territory. Of the six other seats here, five are Labour and one is Lib Dem.
Local MPs include not only Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls but also Shadow Welfare Secretary Rachel Reeves (she’s the one who sounds like the younger Steptoe in TV’s Steptoe & Son). ‘There are 36 days left until the most important general election of a generation,’ began Mr Osborne.
We were in the warehouse of a Britvic’s soft drinks factory. Corporate-bonding posters at the entrance to the office block urged employees to ‘be open, be bold, be disciplined, win together!’
Pallet-loads of lime juice and orange squash and Robinson’s Fruit Shoots were stacked on the warehouse shelves that towered above us. This factory is where they make J20 and Pepsi and Tango and Shandy Bass.
Mr Osborne, who had spent the morning in the West Midlands, arrived late on the Tories’ battle bus. It was only day three of the campaign but the bus’s two Union Jack standards have already become distinctly ragged. MR Osborne, whose speech to about 100 Britvic employees lasted less than half an hour, was introduced by Britvic chairman Gerald Corbett, one of the 103 business leaders who had signed a proOsborne letter to Another Newspaper yesterday morning.
Mr Corbett, a shortish fellow, was barely visible behind his lectern. Do you think he’s related to Ronnie? Then came George’s speech. Grimness. Telling- off scowl. His hairdo was combed forward at the front, Oliver Hardystyle. Given the venue, it might be undiplomatic to suggest that Mr Osborne sounded ‘flat’ but he was certainly going for sobriety. Fizzy was not quite the word.
‘Vote for Ed Miliband and Ed Balls on May 7 and jobs and investment and economic security will be at risk,’ said Mr Osborne with dominatrix severity. ‘We have just 36 days left to save Britain’s economic recovery.’
He described booming Britain – the jobs, the low corporation tax – and said ‘in 36 days all that could be at risk’. Labour’s idea of increasing corporation tax was ‘an assault on everyday working people and a conrete reason why we have...’
You guessed it: ‘...36 days to save Britain’s economic recovery.’
In conclusion he said: ‘Businesses have spoken. The jobs are on the line. We now have just 36 days to save our economic recovery.’ Or as it will be by the time you read this: 35. Oh well, you get the idea.