Cameron Shows The Way - or just more distraction burglary?

Iain Dale thinks David Cameron's speech today is his most important so far in that it is the clearest signal yet of the direction of a Conservative government.

In some ways i think Dale's right. It certainly is the starkest statement he has made yet of the awful position the Tories will inherit and the challenges that will bring. It even includes some specific areas where cuts would be made which, although limited, is certainly a welcome piece of plain speaking.

His defence of the Tories' position on the 50p tax rate is also pretty good, describing last week's budget as a piece of "distraction burglary" where Darling points to the 50p rate which is largely meaningless to distract attention from the growing disaster in the public finances.

I say only pretty good because it's a bit cheap for Cameron to accuse Labour of distraction burglary when later in the same speech he uses the same technique. Listing the high salaries of public officials and promising to name and shame them is good knock about stuff but cutting these back will save hundreds of thousands of pounds, not the billions needed.

We need our politicians to get serious about the financial mess we're in. For voters part, that means not reacting in a knee jerk way when a politician talks about making cuts. They're going to come, the argument should be about where. For their part, politicians need to talk in serious terms about where we're going to find billions of pounds in savings, not just try and focus public anger on a few (admittedly overpaid) public servants.