The Tory plan is right on course.

When Ed Milliband introduced the 'cost of living crisis' debate to parliament, it seemed like a good thing - and it kind of was. It was a handy catch-all phrase that helped to bring a discussion about the financial troubles of working people alongside the constant strivers vs scroungers rhetoric. However, what it also did was to bury discussions about who and/or what caused the recession even further down the agenda and the problem is, it isn't being dealt with at all.

The deafening right-wing crowing about the deficit fails, as of course it would, to mention that the last conservative government had a higher deficit than the pre-bail-out labour government. And the argument from the right about the collapse of the economy is that the last government spent too much on wasteful things like giving the poor enough money to feed themselves. The idea being that if the last government had been more frugal while the economy was good, the country would have been able to cope with the recession.

What is wrong with this argument? I'm fine, in principle, with the idea that a government might run a big surplus in case they need it - provided of course that the economy is strong enough to do that (which it isn't at the moment). What's wrong with the argument is that it suggests we should always expect recessions of this type to happen, rather than discuss what went wrong and how to fix it. What the tories want is to cut spending right down so that the city can carry on being greedy and reckless, safe in the knowledge that when it all falls down, the taxpayer will bail them out again. The handy by-product of this is a far smaller state, which is very much on their most-wanted list anyway - the recession is just a very handy excuse to do it.

Labour do not want to be seen as the anti-city party. Ed Milliband and Ed Balls have talked about bonuses but felt that they couldn't turn the discussion from 'strivers vs scroungers' into 'how to get our money back and stop the banks from failing again' because the city is too powerful and influential to mess with and would not want to have to change their ways. Labour's talk of a tax on bankers bonuses is probably safe enough; they know that the banks will either find clever ways of avoiding paying the tax or just increase salaries and reduce bonuses accordingly.

The labour party could keep quiet about fixing the banks until they get into power. Then, bring in tighter regulations, bonus caps (on top of the bonus tax they've already mentioned) and perhaps even dissolve the corporation of the city of London. Surely the public would be pleased with the new government acting to fix the cause of the recession and and helping to fix the leaks in our economy. And provided there are no more Iraqs or other major mistakes, vote to keep them in for a second term, thus allowing enough time to see some of the benefits of gaining control of the capital.

I do this sometimes: I get these ideas and hopes that labour might do the right thing but then I come to my senses. They won't.