‘Their basic appeal is to offer something for nothing. All paid for by someone else.
For them budgeting is just a bourgeois hobby.
I first encountered this politics of free things as a young Treasury official in Kenya.
President Kenyatta – the father – faced defeat in an election against an opposition offering lots of freebies: free food, free land, free cows, free cars.
He turned to my department for help.
We came up with a winning slogan – Hapana Chakula Kabisa.
Roughly translated it meant: there is no such thing as a free lunch. (Unless of course it is a Lib Dem free school lunch!)
But money and priorities define the crucial difference between us and Labour.
We understand that to govern is to choose. And they don’t.”‘
I would feel inclined to add my own words if Mr Cable had not done such a great job of making himself and his party look so pitiful.
Douglas James
