FOX HUNTING

The Labour Party's crumbling strategy of painting the Tories as the party of 10% spending cuts - by repeated the phrase "10% cuts" at every opportunity - received a small boost on yesterday's 'Today' programme, courtesy of Sarah Montague.

Interviewing the wily shadow defence spokeman, Liam Fox, all of Sarah's first four questions were about Conservative 'cuts', culminating in this question:

"We know that from the overall figures there's a 7% cut required across all departments & if you ring-fence health and aid then it's a 10% cut. Can you say that you will not cut defence by 10%?"

This could have come straight out of a Labour Party briefing note!

There were 4 interruptions throughout this interview, and an I.C. of 1.3 - though the tone was more hostile than this suggests.