Battle of the Chancellors

30 March 2010 | By Andrew Montlake, Director, Coreco Group

To kick us off I’ll hand over to Coreco’s managing director Matthew Lowndes…

“So last night along with what seemed every other person I know I decided to sit down at 8 o’clock and watch the Ask The Chancellors debate on Channel 4. I was even twittering and following the debate online – yes my wife does think I’m mad.

“Now having watched one or two of the US Presidential debates I wasn’t expecting much to be honest and the only thing I was really hoping for was which one of the three would make a complete and utter cock-up of it. Sadly none of them did. The current incumbent, Alistair Darling, was his usual monotone self trotting out party political stats that we heard during last week’s budget, nothing really inspiring but safe. You would also think that Labour were the opposition judging by the amnesia that seems embedded into every argument – I could have sworn they have been able to make decisions for the past 13 years.

“The lovely George who let’s be honest is the lightweight of the three and it fills me with horror that in eight weeks time our economic destiny could be in his hands but to be fair to him he did a pretty good job. His National Insurance proposal’s in the morning gave the other two something to shoot at but he defended his position admirably and to be honest if we can reduce our tax burden on small business via no raise in Employer’s NI then that has to be a good thing. The only outstanding question is can you reduce tax and cut a deficit.

“And so to the Liberal Democrat’s shadow chancellor Vince Cable. Is it just me or does this man always seem to talk sense, I truly believe what he says and I’m as cynical as they come. He produced the best line of the debate referring to Pinstripe Scargills a dig at both Labour and Tory ideology and seemed to be the only one engaging the audience by giving open honest answers. We are in the doo doo and he gets it.

“So is it easier to say what you think when you have no chance of implementing your policies and strategy or is Cable just an all round better person to do the job. You have to take tough decisions in life and you are going to upset people, the private sector has been hammered and now it’s time for the public sector to do their bit too – we need to spend what we bring in, not just borrow more.

“So could a hung parliament really be the best thing for the country? I think it is if we could have Cable looking after the pennies.”