Note this insight from the FT into the source of decisive advice to Osborne for his austerity budget:

“[George Osborne's] other vital relationship is with Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, who played a decisive role in persuading the chancellor that the Budget’s priority had to be the elimination of the £155bn deficit.

“The chancellor’s team say Mr Osborne’s most agonising Budget decision was over the risks to the economy from cutting too deeply and too soon. Mr King insisted it was vital to take questions of Britain’s creditworthiness off the table for good.

“Mr King’s willingness to dispense such advice – and his pointed reference this month to the fact he is 23 years older than the chancellor – has raised questions about whether Mr Osborne is over-reliant on the governor, whose judgment in the financial crisis was hardly flawless. The chancellor rewarded the governor this month with new powers over banking supervision and financial stability that make Mr King one of the world’s most powerful central bankers.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f80c25b2-809e-11df-be5a-00144feabdc0.html

Note, too, this in the news on Saturday night:

“David Cameron and Barack Obama agreed to differ on economic policy last night as Britain claimed international backing for the deep public spending cuts in last week’s Budget.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/g20-pm-and-obama-agree-to-differ-in-friendly-talks-2011728.html

Obama has a formidable team of economic advisers so it will be instructive to see whose reading of the economic entrails turns out to be the more accurate.

“Mr King’s willingness to dispense such advice – and his pointed reference this month to the fact he is 23 years older than the chancellor – has raised questions about whether Mr Osborne is over-reliant on the governor ‘

God help us if Gideon is taking advice from the worst Governor in the Banks’ 300 year history. The King/Osborne tight fiscal and loose monetary plan could all unravel if the hawks start outvoting the Governor.

‘ Obama has a formidable team of economic advisers so it will be instructive to see whose reading of the economic entrails turns out to be the more accurate. ‘

You have got to be joking, Bob. Would this be the economic advisers who have allowed two seats on the FOMC at the Fed to stay empty since he was elected, and allowed the regional hawks to gain the upper hand in Fed monetary policy. The result is a collapsing money supply and a shortage of dollars throughout the world, which could yet send much of the world into a deflationary death spiral. Obama is being advised by idiots.

Richard,

Obama’s team advising on economics policy issues includes:

Tim Geithner – US Treasury Secretary
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7744755.stm

Larry Summers – Director National Economic Council
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nec/director

Christina Romer – Chair of the Council of economic advisers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Economic_Advisers

Ben Bernanke – Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank
http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/board/bernanke.htm

It see from Saturday’s FT that the widely respected Peter Orszag, White House Budget Director, has just resigned, claiming work pressures over a long period.

None of the team lacks high academic distinctions. The Board of the FED acts independently.

There’s plainly a split between the way the Obama administration reads the international economy and the priority accorded to deficit cutting regardless by European governments, notably in Germany and Britain. It will prove instructive to see how the outcome unfolds. For the present, the LibDems are stranded with the deficit cutters.

This was always going to happen. The fact is that Lib Dem supporters are mostly on the Centre Left and do not support the ultra-conservative budget Clegg and his cronies are helping to implement
The lib Dems have consistently mistaken its voters for its party members and activists. People vote because they have concerns and principles. You cannot campaign on a set of policies which you immediately drop at the first sniff of a cabinet seat and then expect voters to trust or respect you. It’s arrogant, slimy and deceitful.

Hardly a surprise that they have dropped in the polls. But it is a bit early to claim this vindicates those of us who predicted that this would wreck the lib dems in the long run.

Lib Dems were always going to lose two groups of voters. Those who like the pain-free moral high ground of opposition; and those who are just left wing and so don’t want to risk voting the tories in again next time.

This is an early indication that maybe that it true, and if happening already, it may grow more acute over the next two years. But then perhaps actually it is something else.

Perhaps Labour’s bounce reflects the fact it no longer has to carry Gordon Brown as a weight on its polls.

Likewise the Tories gaining may be because all the attacks on their government have been on the yellow bit.