Fishburn Hedges

22.06.2010

Iain Dale’s expressed something which will resonate with a lot of politics-watchers, saying he’s disappointed to see so many leaks about the budget.

It’s unsurprising to see content trailed: the media will talk about the budget for days and weeks in advance, so you don’t want an information vacuum.

But one of the most depressing aspects to the last Government was the way policy was revealed. Most major speeches had few surprises, given you could practically read them in the papers the week before. Even worse were releases about funding or initiatives which had already been announced.

There’s real nostalgia for a lost age of ministerial decorum - such as Damien Whitworth’s musings on the strict budget purdah in the 1950s in yesterday’s Times – and this fed a remarkably consistent compliment paid to Cameron & Co since 2005. Many thought they had an intuitive sense of Governmental decency that Labour lacked, with an end to ‘sofa government’ and a strong sense of basic propriety about policy announcements.

Maybe that was misplaced; maybe it’s just no longer possible to keep journalists in the dark, and it’s much harder to stay silent when news gets around a tad quicker with rolling broadcasts and online media. We’ll have to see today if any bigger surprises have been kept quiet.

Posted by Gordon Hector