The Economy

The hon. Gentleman should get better handouts if he is one of the shadow Chancellor's close advisers. [Hon. Members: ““Answer the question.””] I have answered the question. At the 2005 general election, we fought against Labour's spending plans. In 2008, the year that he mentions, we came off Labour's spending plans. Thank God that we did, because it has given us the mandate and the power to put the public finances back on track. The extraordinary thing about the shadow Chancellor is that he takes credit for the things that went right. On Bank of England independence, he has completely written out of the script the then Prime Minister and Chancellor. He now takes sole credit for keeping Britain out of the euro, although, as far as I am aware—I am happy to take an intervention—the Labour party's official policy is still that we join the euro in principle. Is that right? I do not know whether the policy has changed. [Interruption.] We have heard quite a lot from the Labour party in the past couple of hours about being on top of the detail. Surely, the shadow Chancellor knows what his party's policy is on the euro. [Hon. Members: ““He doesn't.””] Oh, dear. Let me give him a clue. When I became Chancellor, I had to close down the euro preparations unit in the Treasury. Of course, the shadow Chancellor takes credit, but he is nowhere to be seen when the discussion turns to the fiddled fiscal rules, the failed tripartite regulation, the doubling of the debt, the bank collapses and the destruction of our pensions—none of those things has anything to do with him at all. Now, he is at it again. This is what a member of the shadow Cabinet said a couple of weeks ago:"““he increasingly thinks his party is heading for the buffers and doesn't want to be in the cab when the collision comes.””" His boss was called Macavity, and it turns out that Macavity has a kitten—son of Macavity. There is a reason for all this: because he cannot construct a credible story about the past that does not cast himself as a villain, he lunges forward in opposition from one incredible uncosted policy to another.