THE UNITED Kingdom may be forced to accept International Monetary Fund orders if the May 6th general election results in a hung parliament, the Conservative Party has warned.
The warning came on the eve of tonight’s Sky TV leaders’ debate between prime minister Gordon Brown, Tory leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
“The only time the IMF has come in was when there was a hung parliament. We should not under-estimate the economic consequences of political uncertainty, on our credit rating, unemployment and business confidence,” shadow chancellor George Osborne declared during a television debate with chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling and Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable.
However, the charge was ridiculed by Mr Darling as “pretty desperate stuff” that illustrated the panic evident in Tory ranks in the wake of the meteoric rise in Lib Dem popularity ratings after the first leaders’ debate last week.
Responding to the Conservative warning, Mr Brown said they had made a mistake: “I think what they’ve done, by mistake, is put the economy right at the centre of the election now,” he told Labour Party supporters.
Ken Clarke, a former chancellor of the exchequer and now Tory shadow business secretary, said voters had to examine the consequences of electoral “limbo” and he pointed to the difficulties when the UK last had a hung parliament in 1974 – two years later Labour sought lending from the IMF.
“The bond markets won’t wait for all the discussions and horse trading. Sterling will wobble. If Britain doesn’t deliver a government a working majority, markets don’t think that we can tackle the problem, then the IMF will have to do it for us,” Mr Clarke told the Tories’ morning press conference.
Half of the time on tonight’s 90-minute TV leaders’ debate in Bristol will focus on foreign policy and the Liberal Democrat leader is expected to be targeted over his attitude to a replacement for the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles by Mr Brown and by Mr Cameron, who will also tackle the Lib Dems’ generally favourable attitude towards the European Union.
Last night, a senior Labour strategist expressed some concern that the TV debates, while they will be watched by tens of millions, had had the surprising result of diminishing the already-limited time devoted to discussion of policies because the media has spent so much time after Manchester debating the leaders’ performances, and their impact on voters.
Some UK media organisations, such as the Rupert Murdoch-controlled News International, have been happy to promote the Lib Dem leader as the winner of the first debate because it helped to "deflect" attention from Mr Cameron's own performance, a senior Labour figure told The Irish Times: "I expect that the second debate will run for some of them as 'a Cameron comeback' story."
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats’ plans to fund a £17 billion tax cut by raising £5 billion from closing tax loopholes has been dismissed by the former head of the UK Customs and Revenue Service.
“Savings from closing tax avoidance loopholes are likely to produce rather less tax than Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats suggest. If there were a simple solution to the tax avoidance problem one would have been found over the last few years,” said Chris Tailby, head of the revenue anti-avoidance group until last year.