Why do the Tories have so little to say about economic crisis?
In all the current excitement, there is one political question which no one seems to be asking: where are the Conservatives?
Do David Cameron and George Osborne have a grand plan?
True, there has been the occasional comment from the shadow chancellor along the lines of, "This is all really terrible and don't forget that the other guys have been in charge." But apart from the odd sighting on Newsnight (where he made a perfectly competent if rather uninspiring showing this week), Mr Osborne has been almost invisible during the economic crisis of the century.
And his boss, David Cameron, has confined himself to defending the principle of free markets against the anti-capitalist lobby who are making hay, rather than offering any detailed account of how his party would be dealing with the disaster.
We are forced to suspect that the Conservatives are as much at a loss as is Labour about where to go from here, and in office would be just as likely to be winging it as the present Cabinet.
Presumably they assume that so long as they can sit tight and stay schtum, they will reap the electoral benefit of public outrage without having to supply their own alternative plan for getting out of this mess. Fair enough.
But there is one point that they should be obliged to confront: what happens to their Big Idea of "sharing the proceeds of growth" when there is no growth? In the one memorable comment of the LibDem conference, Vince Cable referred to the Tory plan for "sharing the proceeds of recession". It brought the house down.
So what now, Mr Cameron – or should I say, Mr Letwin? What is the Conservative proposal for recovery? And how has your overall approach to taxation and spending been affected by our present problems?
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