With both the government and the Labour Party in terminal condition and little time for either to do much about it, our thoughts inevitably turn to the Conservatives, and to what they might do after May 2010. In a very general sense we know what they would like to do: cut public expenditure so as to restore 'order' to the state's finances. But everyone else would do that too, with more or less enthusiasm. More difficult to predict is the detail of Conservative policies, especially in the domestic sphere. Cameron and Osborne have been evasive and there has been a marked reluctance to specify where the cuts might fall - both in expenditure and, if there are to be any, in taxation. We have heard more about what is to be 'ring-fenced' - health, defence, perhaps education, almost certainly law and order - than what is to go, and more about taxes that won't be cut than those that will.

LRB 24 September 2009 | PDF Download