The puerile left

Danny Finkelstein is on absolutely top form here.

The Left’s approach to the fiscal crisis has been inarticulate rage of this sort coupled with hyperbole and menace and threats of general strikes. Every reduction in spending has been resisted, the attacks invariably intemperate. And the thrust of the rhetoric, without irony, is that by cutting unaffordable welfare, and arguing for those cuts, it is Mr Osborne who is being divisive, bringing discord where there was harmony.

But the lesson of the Thatcher years is that what broke the harmony is borrowing more than we can afford, that what causes discord is unreasonably demanding that welfare be left untouched when it cannot conceivably be left untouched, and that what seems in the short run to be divisive may, in the long run, be the only way of restoring social stability.

 And there's a particularly good illustration of what passes for intellectual opposition these days:

A few days ago, the MP Tom Watson published (I promise you that he did) the following on Twitter: “Bad man @george_osborne: Booooooooo Boooooooo Booooooooo #booGideon.” Mr Watson is 46 years old. And a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Superb stuff.