However,

Hypothetically, I suspect the level of debt would have been around the same, pre-crisis. There was no Tory call for the level of debt to be reduced at the time (that I can find)

So, as you say, lower spending would have meant lower taxes, rather than lower borrowing requirements.

So the response to the banking disaster could have included increased borrowing, but also increased taxation in those areas where they would have been decreased earlier. The tax system would have had more wriggle-room.

We would be having the same arguments as now on the level and timing of the debt-reduction plan though.

Andrew – does the fact that you’re in the next ICM figures give it more credibility, or less?

I’m not yet convinced that Lab have broken through a ceiling of 30, and that it isn’t MoE. Maybe they will in the few weeks ahead, but don’t count on it.

Wolf Macneil

“And on what grounds were the LibDems, plus Kenneth Clarke and a handful of other Tories, so sure that it wasn’t?”

I don’t know about KC but the LibDems have their own briefing on military matters.

Benm

“(Don’t necessarily think Labour deserves a fourth term, I’m more of an ABT – Anyone But Tories!)”

Surely not yet another Scottish Poster?

Alec:

“Maybe the ‘clunking fist’ will have the day after all?”

Could it be that that is the “Strong Leader” the C2′s admire?

Derek Pierson:

“Given that people seem to think it’s time for a change & they’re fed up of Brown & Labour, but they’re unconvinced by Cameron & the Tories, I find it baffling that the LibDems are static.”

I’m baffled too, and in rural Scotland they are in competition with the SNP who have a higher impact because they are in power in the SP. People on these pages are saying Lab and Con aren’t doing well, but neither are the LibDems and FPTP will shaft the SNP and Scottish Conservatives.

Is it only the Greens (if they win a seat) that are going to be pleased with the result?

Personally I believe that the Conservatives would probably have spent less on public services, and taxed less, than Labour in the decade before the credit crisis. That is after all what the other parties have been saying ABOUT the Conservatives during that time. The question is really whether those policies would have left the UK better or worse prepared for the credit crisis. I certainly don’t see any evidence that the Tories were any more perceptive about the problems of the asset bubble than the government, or that their solutions would have been any different, but that doesn’t mean that the economic climate would have been exactly the same under their stewardship.

@THEGREATGONZO

I agree that people probably don’t believe Cameron would have done anything different from Brown in the years building up to the economic crisis.