The FT highlights a bit of Indian Bicycle Marketing...

From today's FT editorial:

This week, Andrew Lansley, the Conservative party’s health spokesman, broke a political taboo; he said something relevant about the coming fiscal crunch. He explained that the Tories intend to protect the NHS and aid budgets in 2011-14, but, to pay for this commitment, will require 10 per cent cuts in other departments’ budgets. Mr Lansley’s analysis was cogent. The response was not.

Gordon Brown, still the UK prime minister, reacted with metronomic predictability. He robotically repeated his tiredest line of attack: "This is the day when they showed that the choice is between investment under Labour and massive cuts under the Conservative party."

This assault is dishonest.

Mr Lansley’s arithmetic was based on the assumption that both parties would spend the same amount in total. If the Tories are planning any "cuts", it is only because they are copying the government’s fiscal plans. Once inflation, debt service and unemployment spending is stripped out, Mr Brown intends a 7 per cent fall in real spending over the period.

Indeed, Andy Burnham, the Tiggerish new health secretary, suggested that NHS spending would also be shielded by a Labour government, implying that the two parties are actually proposing exactly the same spending plans.

Rather than highlighting real differences, the government is trying to draw dividing lines between the parties by exploiting the ambiguity in its own fiscal proposals. The prime minister fought for years to establish Labour as the party of fiscal discipline while he spent furiously. Now Mr Brown is frantically pretending to be profligate, when, in truth, he has been stuck with prudence.

So there we have it, Nulabour, Blulabour in a nutshell. It's all about presentation - the substance is the same.