Last week, I asked a London cabbie why he voted Tory. All of them are not voting for Ken Livingstone, but it’s an entirely different matter altogether why some of them don’t trust Labour with the economy.

At the heart of many of such people’s criticisms is the idea is that the state is overinflated, spending on it ballooned out of proportion especially in management, and that we did not invest when we could have afforded it. This ‘we didn’t mend the roof while the sun was shining’ may seem at face value entirely sensible, but I would argue that we should not set fire to the whole house as the roof is not right.

The real issue is that we need to get the deficit down without endangering the recovery, and central to that is not adopting a strategy which the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Confederation of Small Businesses have described as unfair. Norman Lamount said famously that unemployment is a price well-worth-paying, and the Labour current policy recognises that growth and jobs are central to our economic strategy – not a side issue.

It is often said that the general public should not be underestimated, but I wonder how many people genuinely stop to think about this in actuality. All parties need to treat the public as intelligent enough to understand that bringing the world economy back from the brink of catastrophe is not the same as paying off a credit card bill. ?For example, there are only very few companies who have a AAA* rating which are about to go ‘bankrupt’. George Osborne by claiming that Britain is about to go bankrupt is making a legal representation potentially – whether this misrepresentation is fraudulent, negligent or innocent, I’ll leave entirely up to you.

There has to be cuts but without growth, attempts to cut the deficit will be self defeating. ?A rising dole queue means a bigger welfare bill, and less tax revenue coming in. ?Perplexingly whilst the Government introduces a ‘bonfire of the QUANGOs’, the Government’s newest quango – the Office for Budget Responsibility – says that the coalition’s approach will cost jobs, and that those job losses will cost the taxpayer £700m in Jobseekers Allowance claims alone. ?The reputable management consultancy firm ?Price Waterhouse Coopers are forecasting that a million jobs will go as austerity takes its toll – half of them in the private sector.

The Conservative Party did not win the election, despite Labour losing it. They have no mandate for this policy, and the Liberal Democrats, for supporting this, through Nick Clegg will in 2015 or earlier be consigned to history.

Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.

Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors